179 Fun Facts About Cats

In which Shakespeare play is the hot-headed Tybalt mocked as the 'King of Cats'?

Romeo and Juliet has Mercutio goad Tybalt as 'Good King of Cats', a jab at his name: Tibert, or Tybalt, is the Prince of Cats in the old Reynard the Fox tales.

Which children's author wrote The Cat in the Hat?

Dr. Seuss published the book in 1957 after a publisher challenged him to write a first reader that children would not find boring; he managed it with just 236 different words.

What is a group of cats called?

A clowder is the usual word for a group of cats, also called a glaring; the animals may live together in colonies, yet each one hunts alone.

The Savannah breed was created by crossing domestic cats with which wild species?

Serval blood gives the Savannah its height and spots; the first kitten was born to a domestic cat in 1986, and that wild ancestry keeps the breed banned or restricted in some US states and countries.

The Bengal breed was created by crossing domestic cats with which wild species?

The Bengal descends from crosses between domestic cats and the Asian leopard cat, Prionailurus bengalensis, whose species name gave the breed its name.

What is a baby cat called?

A baby cat is called a kitten. The term comes from the Middle English word 'kitoun,' which was derived from Old French 'chitoun' or 'cheton.'

When a cat laps, how does its tongue lift liquid into its mouth?

Pulling up a column is the trick: the tongue tip just touches the surface and darts back, drawing liquid up behind it, and the jaws close before gravity breaks the column, about four times a second.

In 1890 thousands of Egyptian cat mummies were shipped to which English port and sold as fertilizer?

Liverpool took delivery of the mummies, most of them cats, soon after a vast animal cemetery was dug up at Beni Hasan; a large part went to fertilize fields, and a city museum bought a few.

Young kittens' eyes are blue because their irises still lack which pigment?

Melanin builds up in the iris over a kitten's first couple of months and brings in the adult eye color; cats whose irises never make much of it keep their blue eyes for life.

What is the high-set inner toe on a cat's front leg called?

Dewclaw is the name; it sits clear of the ground and bears no weight when a cat walks, but wild cats use it in the hunt to help catch and hold prey, and the hind legs have none.

What is the scientific name for a cat's whiskers?

Vibrissae are no ordinary hairs: each is more than twice as thick, rooted three times deeper and ringed with nerve endings, which lets a cat judge the width of a gap in the dark.

What is a female cat called?

A queen is a female cat, strictly one kept for breeding; queens living in a colony share the work of motherhood and will feed one another's young.

CC, a kitten born at Texas A&M University in 2001, was the first pet produced by which technique?

Cloning produced CC, short for CopyCat, yet she was no carbon copy: her coat looked quite unlike that of Rainbow, the cat she was copied from, because fur pattern is not fixed by DNA alone.

Which retinal cells help cats see in one-sixth the light humans need?

Rods, the retina's dim-light receptors, are far more numerous in a cat's eye than in ours; the trade-off is color, because cats have far fewer cones and see a duller range of hues.

A sleeping cat's twitching limbs are a sign of which sleep stage?

REM sleep is when a cat's muscles twitch, a hint that it may be dreaming; most cats sleep 12 hours a day or more, a habit that conserves their energy.

What is the term for a cat with three distinct fur colors (black, orange, and white)?

Calico cats mix white with patches of black and orange; Maryland made the calico its state cat in 2001 because those colors match its state bird, the Baltimore oriole.

What is the name of the reflective layer behind a cat's retina that enhances night vision?

The tapetum lucidum is a reflective layer of tissue behind the retina that bounces light back through the eye, giving photoreceptors a second chance to detect it. This is what causes cats' eyes to glow in the dark.

Which cat breed is known for looking almost completely hairless?

Sphynx cats are not always completely bald, as some carry fine hairs; with no coat to absorb the skin's oils, they have to be bathed regularly.

Which compound in catnip triggers the plant's famous effect on cats?

Nepetalactone is the catnip oil that sets cats rolling; the plant makes it to repel insects, and a 2021 study found that cats coated in such compounds are bitten less by mosquitoes.

Tama, a cat credited with saving a rural Japanese railway line from closure, held which official job title?

Stationmaster of Kishi Station from 2007, Tama greeted passengers in a specially made cap and was paid in cat food; the publicity lifted passenger numbers and helped keep the line open.

What is a 'polydactyl' cat?

A cat with extra toes is called polydactyl, a trait passed on by a dominant gene; sailors thought such cats lucky and took them to sea, spreading them along North America's east coast.

What is the term for a cat with two different colored eyes?

Heterochromia in cats usually pairs one blue eye with a green, yellow or brown one; a gene for white fur keeps pigment from developing in the blue eye.

Which wild species, first tamed in the Near East some 10,000 years ago, is the domestic cat's ancestor?

African wildcats are the ancestors of every house cat; they were drawn to the rodents that thrived around the first farming villages and settled in beside people.

Why are adult cats thought to knead soft surfaces with their paws?

A holdover from nursing as kittens is one common explanation: kittens knead the teat to bring on milk, and some adult cats still suckle a blanket as they knead.

Which cat breed is known for its flat face and long, luxurious fur?

Persian cats pair a long coat with a flat face; breeders pushed the short nose to an extreme during the 20th century, and the flattest-faced cats can struggle to breathe.

Toxoplasmosis, the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cat litter, is caused by which kind of organism?

A parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, causes it; infected cats shed it in their droppings, though people also catch it from undercooked meat and contaminated soil.

Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office from 2011, took up residence at which address?

Larry arrived at 10 Downing Street from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in February 2011 and was kept as a civil-service cat rather than any prime minister's personal pet.

The Egyptian Mau, the fastest domestic breed, has been clocked running at about what speed?

30 mph (48 km/h) is about the Egyptian Mau's top speed, helped by a loose flap of skin between flank and hind leg that lets the back legs stretch further with each stride.

In which country did the Siamese cat breed originate?

Thailand, formerly Siam, is where the breed appears in centuries-old cat poems; the first one known in America, named Siam, was sent from Bangkok in 1878 as a gift to President Hayes.

What does a cat's tail mainly help with?

Balance: the tail's vertebrae act as a counterweight to the body when a cat moves quickly; a human's own tail has shrunk to the three to five small bones of the tailbone.

Tardar Sauce was the real name of which internet-famous cat, a meme since 2012?

Grumpy Cat went viral in 2012 when photos of her scowl were posted online; her owner put the sour look down to feline dwarfism and an underbite.

Besides keeping the coat clean, what is one job a cat's grooming does?

Removing parasites like fleas is the other job of all that licking: studies suggest it keeps flea numbers down, and scratching helps dislodge them from the head and neck.

Which author's former home in Key West, Florida, is famous for its colony of polydactyl cats?

Ernest Hemingway's Key West house, now a museum, is home to dozens of cats; the museum says some descend from Snow White, a white polydactyl cat that a ship's captain gave the writer.

Where in a cat's body is the vomeronasal (Jacobson's) organ located?

Roof of the mouth is where the organ sits; a cat opens the passage to it by wrinkling its muzzle and letting its tongue hang, a grimace known as the flehmen response.

White cats with two blue eyes are unusually prone to which condition?

Deafness affects roughly 65 to 85 percent of white cats with two blue eyes; the same dominant gene that whitens the coat makes the inner ear degenerate within weeks of birth.

What is the name of the loose flap of skin that sways under a cat's belly?

Primordial pouch is the name for this normal belly flap, which is not a sign of being overweight; it may shield the abdomen from raking kicks in a fight, and some owners call it the 'spay sway'.

The first organized cat show, staged by Harrison Weir in 1871, was held at which London venue?

Crystal Palace hosted the show in July 1871; Weir went on to found the National Cat Club but soon quit, writing that many members cared more for winning prizes than for the welfare of cats.

Many adult cats cannot properly digest which part of cow's milk?

Its sugar, lactose: many adult cats cannot digest it easily, so the storybook saucer of milk is more likely to bring on an upset stomach than to do them good.

Which Egyptian goddess came to be depicted as a house cat or a cat-headed woman?

Bastet began as a fierce lioness goddess, a role she shared with Sekhmet, and softened over the centuries into the cat-headed protector of the home.

In 2022, how many breeds did the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognize for its Championship Class?

In 2022 the CFA recognized 42 breeds in its Championship Class; three more, the Khao Manee, Lykoi and Toybob, sat in non-competitive classes.

The 'righting reflex' lets a falling cat do what?

Land on its feet: a falling cat bends at the waist and twists its front and back halves in turn to face the ground, though a fall from a height can still injure it.

The 2016 documentary Kedi follows the street cats of which city?

Istanbul is seen the way its street cats see it: the crew built special camera rigs to follow the animals through the streets at their own eye level.

What is the Manx cat breed best known for?

It is naturally tailless, thanks to a dominant gene that arose on the Isle of Man; kittens that inherit two copies usually die before birth, so a tailless Manx carries only one.

The split between 'purring cats' and 'roaring cats' was traditionally based on which bone?

The traditional split rested on the hyoid bone: fully ossified in purring cats, incompletely ossified in the roaring Panthera species; later work argued the hyoid does not actually decide purring.

Whose poetry collection about cats became the basis for the musical Cats?

T. S. Eliot wrote the poems in the 1930s for his godchildren, sending them in letters signed 'Old Possum'; Andrew Lloyd Webber set them to music for Cats in 1981.

The Abyssinian breed is named after a region that is now which country?

Ethiopia was once called Abyssinia, home of the first cats of the breed shown in England; genetic research, though, traces the breed's origins to Southeast Asia rather than Africa.

What causes cat scratch disease, also known as cat scratch fever?

The bacterium Bartonella henselae causes it; fleas pass the microbe from cat to cat, and a scratch or bite from a carrier then hands it on to people.

Which cartoonist created the comic-strip cat Garfield?

Jim Davis turned to a cat after an editor told him nobody could relate to his earlier strip about bugs; he saw the comics were full of dogs but had no star cat, and named his after his grandfather.

Which big cat shares the roaring cats' larynx anatomy yet purrs rather than roars?

Snow leopards share the roaring cats' flexible throat anatomy yet cannot roar: their vocal folds are too short to give the airflow much resistance, so they purr and chuff instead.

A cat's carnassial teeth work like which tool?

Scissors: the blade-edged premolar and molar on each side slide past each other to slice meat into small pieces, because a cat's cheek teeth are built to shear, not to chew.

What shape does a domestic cat's pupil take in bright light?

In bright light a domestic cat's pupil narrows to a vertical slit, which lets it cut light far more than a round pupil; in darkness it opens almost fully round.

In a colony of cats, which members hold their tails upright most often when approaching others?

Subordinate cats raise their tails more often than dominant ones, so the upright tail doubles as a marker of each cat's rank in the group.

What is unusual about a cat's collarbone?

It floats free, attached only by muscle rather than to other bones, which lets a cat squeeze its body through any gap its head fits through.

Compared to humans, how much stronger is a cat's sense of smell, approximately?

A cat's sense of smell is significantly more acute than a human's, estimated to be about 14 times stronger due to a larger number of olfactory receptors.

Creme Puff, the oldest cat ever recorded by Guinness World Records, died in 2005 at what age?

38 years and 3 days was Creme Puff's final tally in Austin, Texas; owner Jake Perry, who also raised the previous record holder, said he fed her bacon, eggs, broccoli and coffee with cream.

The Cheshire Cat, famous for its lingering grin, was popularized by which author?

Lewis Carroll made the Cheshire Cat famous in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), though the phrase 'grin like a Cheshire cat' was already in use in the 18th century.

What is the name of a cat's translucent 'third eyelid'?

Nictitating membrane is the name; it sweeps sideways from the inner corner of the eye to clean and moisten it, and being see-through it lets a cat blink without hindering its vision.

Which cat breed is often called the 'gentle giant' and is known for its large size and bushy tail?

Maine Coon cats are Maine's official state cat; the 'Coon' comes from an old belief, prompted by the bushy ringed tail, that cats had bred with raccoons, a genetically impossible match.

What is the term for an intense fear of cats?

Ailurophobia takes its name from ailouros, the Greek word for cat, which the Greeks also used as their name for Egypt's cat goddess; cynophobia, by contrast, is the fear of dogs.

What is a cat thought to be doing when it butts its head against you?

Scent-rubbing to bond with you is thought to lie behind head-butting, or bunting: the cat leaves scent from the glands on its cheeks and forehead, just as it does on other cats in its group.

A hairless kitten named Prune, born in 1966, began a Canadian breeding line in which city?

Toronto was Prune's birthplace; his breeders first called their cats 'Moonstones' and 'Canadian Hairless', and it took decades of crossing with normal-coated cats to establish a breed.

Which cat breed is known for unusually short legs, caused by a natural genetic mutation?

Munchkin cats take their name from the little people of The Wizard of Oz; the short legs come from a dominant mutation, and several cat registries refuse to recognize the breed on welfare grounds.

What is the name of the popular Japanese good luck charm, often depicted as a beckoning cat?

Maneki-neko means 'beckoning cat': to Western eyes the raised paw looks like a wave, but the palm-down motion is Japan's gesture for 'come here', which is why shops set one by the door.

Socks the cat lived in the White House with which president's family?

Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea took in Socks as a stray in 1991; he never tolerated the family's dog Buddy, so when the Clintons left office he went to live with secretary Betty Currie.

Morris, the finicky orange tabby of 1970s TV ads, sold which cat food brand?

9Lives found its finicky mascot in 1968 at a Chicago-area animal shelter, where handler Bob Martwick adopted the original Morris; every cat to play him since has also been a rescue.

Besides its face, where else on its body does a cat grow whiskers?

Forelegs: a tuft of whiskers grows on the underside of each one just above the foot, as well as on the muzzle, chin and brows; cutting a cat's whiskers can leave it confused about its surroundings.

Which dictionary-maker famously bought oysters himself for his cat Hodge?

Samuel Johnson went out to buy Hodge's oysters himself, Boswell wrote, so the servants would not come to dislike the cat; a bronze Hodge now sits outside Johnson's London house.

The first cat of a folded-ear breed, a white barn cat named Susie, was found in 1961 in which country?

Scotland: Susie lived on a farm near Coupar Angus in Tayside, and William Ross asked for one of her folded-ear kittens; that kitten, Snooks, went on to found the breed.

What is a neutered male cat called?

Gib, a Middle English word probably short for the name Gilbert, means a male cat, especially a neutered one; an unneutered male is a tom, while a castrated sheep is a wether, a pig a barrow and a rooster a capon.

Where in the spine do cats have seven vertebrae to our five?

Lower back: a cat has seven lumbar vertebrae there to our five, and 13 in the upper back to our 12, and those extra joints help explain its famously flexible spine.

Cats are crepuscular, so when are they most active?

Dawn and dusk: crepuscular animals are busiest in twilight, which suits a low-light hunter, though house cats often bend their routine toward their owners' sleeping patterns.

Which internet cat with a Pop-Tart body flies through space in a 2011 video?

Nyan Cat began as a doodle: illustrator Chris Torres was drawing for a Red Cross donation drive when two viewers suggested a Pop-Tart and a cat, and a YouTube user later set his GIF to a looping Japanese song.

Which flavor is a cat unable to detect, thanks to a broken receptor gene?

Sweet is lost on cats: house cats, lions and tigers all carry a broken copy of one of the two genes that build the sweet receptor, which is why cats show no interest in sugar.

A newborn kitten finds its mother's milk for the first week or so without which sense?

Sight: kittens are born with their eyes closed and open them at about seven to ten days, so at first they depend on their mother for everything.

Who proposed the domestic cat's scientific name in 1758?

Carl Linnaeus named the cat Felis catus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae, the book zoologists still treat as the starting point for the scientific names of animals.

What essential amino acid, vital for a cat's vision and heart health, must be obtained through its diet?

Taurine is something cats cannot make enough of themselves; a shortage damages the heart and the retina, and commercial cat food ran short of it until a 1987 study traced feline heart failure to the gap.

Between 60 and 56 BC, an outraged Egyptian crowd lynched a Roman for doing what?

Killing a cat, even by accident, could not be forgiven: the historian Diodorus watched the crowd rush to the man's house, and neither the king's officials nor the people's fear of Rome could save him.

What food-themed nickname is commonly given to a cat's rhythmic paw-pushing?

Making biscuits is the owners' name for kneading, because the alternating paw-pushes look like someone working dough; cats will sit on hard surfaces but only knead soft ones.

A Siamese cat's dark face, ears, legs and tail develop where its skin is what?

Coolest: a heat-sensitive enzyme makes pigment only below body temperature, so the cats are born pale, darken at the extremities and grow darker in cold climates than in warm ones.

Because cats are superfecund, kittens in a single litter can have different what?

Fathers can differ within one litter because a female in heat may mate with several males, and each of her eggs can be fertilised by a different one.

What triggers a female cat to release her eggs?

Mating itself triggers ovulation in cats, usually after three or four matings in a day, so a female can become pregnant at any point while she is in heat.

Japan made cat cafes famous, but the world's first opened in 1998 in which other city?

Taipei's Cat Flower Garden opened in 1998; the idea then crossed to Japan, where the first cat cafe opened in Osaka in 2004 and the craze took off.

A cat's few sweat glands are located mainly where?

Paw pads hold most of a cat's few sweat glands, too few to cool it much, so a cat also sheds heat by licking its coat and letting the saliva evaporate, while panting is a sign that it is far too hot.

The lazy, lasagna-loving comic-strip cat Garfield lives with his owner Jon Arbuckle and which dog?

Odie arrived as the pet of Jon's roommate Lyman, a regular in the strip's early years who was later dropped without explanation, leaving the dog with Jon and Garfield.

House cats still carry traits inherited from wild ancestors that lived in which habitat?

Desert: cats descend from desert-dwelling ancestors and kept their knack of surviving on little water, making very concentrated urine and dry stools to lose as little as possible.

Whether a cat reacts to catnip at all is decided mostly by what?

Its genes: the catnip response is inherited, so a cat either has it or does not, and somewhere between a fifth and a third of cats never react however fresh the plant.

What is the name of Alice's pet cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Dinah is Alice's cat at home, and Alice keeps frightening off the creatures she meets, first the Mouse and then the birds, by boasting how good Dinah is at catching them.

Which cartoon cat, created in 1919 by Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan, was a star of the silent-film era?

Felix the Cat debuted in 1919's Feline Follies from Pat Sullivan's studio; Sullivan took sole credit while he lived, animator Otto Messmer later said the cat was his, and the dispute was never settled.

A cat's pregnancy lasts about nine weeks, much the same as which other animal's?

Dog: cats carry their young for about 65 days and dogs for about 63, roughly nine weeks each, which lets a cat raise as many as three litters in a year.

Cats keep their claws sheathed in skin and fur when relaxed, which mainly protects the claws from what?

Wear: sheathed claws never scrape the ground, so they keep their points, and the padded step lets a cat stalk its prey in silence.

What does the feral-cat management method TNR stand for?

Trap-neuter-return: feral cats are caught, sterilised and vaccinated, then put back where they were found, where a volunteer caretaker usually keeps feeding the colony and watching its health.

What are the small, backward-pointing spines that make a cat's tongue rough called?

Papillae on a cat's tongue are stiffened with keratin, and a 2018 study found each one has a hollow tip that wicks saliva from the mouth and releases it deep into the fur as the cat grooms.

Which author wrote the 1902 tale 'The Cat that Walked by Himself'?

Rudyard Kipling's Cat, in the Just So Stories, follows the Dog, Horse and Cow to the humans' cave but refuses to be tamed, insisting that he walks by himself and 'all places are alike to me'.

A tamed cat from about 7500 BCE, buried beside a human, turned up on which island?

Cyprus: the burial at Shillourokambos dates to about 7500 BCE, and because the island had no native cats, its Neolithic settlers must have carried the animal's ancestors over from the mainland.

What is the name of the talking black cat in Sabrina the Teenage Witch?

Salem Saberhagen is the wisecracking black cat of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a warlock sentenced to 100 years as a cat for trying to take over the world.

Which of these breeds is widely cited as provoking a milder reaction in people with cat allergies?

Russian Blue cats turn up on lists of breeds that bother allergy sufferers less, partly because they shed little, but no cat is truly hypoallergenic: every breed still makes the allergens.

Which pointed breed's standard requires four white paws known as 'gloves'?

The Birman must show pure white 'gloves' on all four paws; the breed was almost wiped out in the Second World War and was rebuilt afterwards from a single surviving pair.

What is the defining physical trait of the LaPerm cat breed?

A curly or wavy coat marks the LaPerm, which began with an Oregon farm kitten born completely bald in 1982; within months she grew a full curly coat and was named Curly.

Why are tortoiseshell coats almost always found on female cats?

A gene on the X chromosome decides orange or black, so only a cat with two X chromosomes can show both in patches; the rare male tortoiseshell usually has an extra X and is sterile.

Dewey Readmore Books, a kitten rescued in 1988, became the resident cat of what?

A library in Spencer, Iowa: someone left the kitten in its book-return box one cold January night in 1988, and the staff who found him next morning adopted him; he lived there for almost 19 years.

Cats see well in dim light, but which aspect of their eyesight is far weaker than a human's?

Sharpness of detail: a cat's acuity is roughly 20/100 to 20/200, so it must stand about six metres from something a person sees clearly at 20 or 30, the price of eyes built for dim light.

Which Hanna-Barbera cat led a gang of Manhattan alley cats in a 1961 TV series?

Top Cat was written as a spoof of the fast-talking Sergeant Bilko in The Phil Silvers Show, and Maurice Gosfield, who played Bilko's Private Doberman, voiced his sidekick Benny the Ball.

Adult cats direct which vocalization almost entirely at humans rather than other cats?

Adult cats rarely meow at each other, so meowing at people is thought to extend the mewing kittens aim at their mothers; domestic cats meow far more than feral ones.

What is the name of Hermione Granger's cat in the Harry Potter books?

Crookshanks is Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat, bought in Diagon Alley in Prisoner of Azkaban, who keeps trying to catch Ron's rat Scabbers.

What does a cat signal when it approaches with its tail held straight up?

A friendly greeting: a cat that walks up with its tail held vertical is announcing friendly intent, to people as much as to other cats, whereas a tail tucked between the hind legs signals fear.

Which dietary classification do biologists give the cat?

Obligate carnivore: cats rely on nutrients found only in animal tissue; unlike many animals, for instance, they cannot turn the carotene in plants into vitamin A.

Which protein in cat saliva and skin is the main allergen behind cat allergies?

Fel d 1 is made mainly in the skin's sebaceous glands and in saliva; unneutered males produce the most, but females and neutered males still make enough to trouble sensitive people.

What name is given to a black cat with a white chest and paws?

Tuxedo cats are bicolours: black with white on the chest, paws and often the belly and face, as if in formal dress; the name is for a coat marking seen in many breeds, not for a breed.

Which Disney film features the mischievous Siamese cats Si and Am?

Lady and the Tramp (1955) has Peggy Lee voicing both Si and Am; she co-wrote the film's songs for a small flat fee and decades later fought Disney over her share of the royalties.

Cats' craving for tuna has been linked to their tongue's receptors for what?

Umami: a 2023 study found that cat receptors respond strongly to a pair of compounds abundant in tuna, and its authors argue that umami is the main flavour that draws cats to meat.

What common household plant is highly toxic to cats and can cause kidney failure?

Even licking lily pollen off its coat can put a cat in danger, and vets treat any suspected exposure as an emergency. Tulips and philodendrons are also on the toxic list.

Cats are digitigrade, which means they walk on what?

Their toes: a digitigrade animal walks with its heel raised off the ground, a stance linked to speed and agility, while humans and bears are plantigrade and walk on the whole sole.

The tabby pattern of narrow stripes down a cat's sides shares its name with which fish?

Mackerel tabbies have narrow stripes down their sides, also earning them the name 'fishbone tabby'; the swirled 'classic' pattern comes from a recessive gene, so a cat needs a copy from each parent to show it.

In Disney's The Aristocats, what is the name of the mother cat?

Duchess and her three young are drugged and dumped in the countryside by the butler Edgar, who wants their owner's fortune for himself, and alley cat Thomas O'Malley guides them home to Paris.

Besides spraying urine, what else do cats deposit to mark the bounds of their territory?

Droppings: cats mark territory with faeces as well as urine spray, even though around home they have a strong instinct to bury their waste.

Which of these large cats belongs to the genus Acinonyx rather than Panthera?

The cheetah has the genus Acinonyx to itself; unlike other cats it cannot fully retract its claws, which are blunt and lack a protective sheath.

Trim, the ship's cat who circled Australia in 1801-03, sailed with which navigator?

Matthew Flinders took Trim around Australia and, while held captive by the French on Mauritius, wrote a fond tribute to him; a bronze Trim now sits behind Flinders's statue in Sydney.

What does 'ticked' mean when it describes the coat of an Abyssinian cat?

Hairs banded with several colors: each hair carries alternating light and dark bands, which gives the Abyssinian's coat its flecked, salt-and-pepper 'wild' look.

What is the name of Dr. Evil's hairless cat in the Austin Powers films?

Mr. Bigglesworth spoofs the fluffy white cat stroked by the Bond villain Blofeld; he lost all his fur to a thawing error after 30 years frozen alongside Dr. Evil.

The Ragdoll breed takes its name from what habit?

Every Ragdoll descends from a cat named Josephine whose kittens shared the placid, floppy temperament. Some British breeders have tried to breed the limpness out, worried extreme docility is not good for the cat.

In Edward Lear's nonsense poem, which bird goes to sea with the Pussy-cat in a pea-green boat?

An owl: Lear's Owl serenades the Pussy-cat on a small guitar, and after a year and a day at sea the pair buy a ring from a pig and are married by a turkey.

A threatened cat arches its back, raises its fur and turns which way to look as big as possible?

Sideways: showing its flank with back arched and fur on end makes the cat look as large as it can, a 'stay away' threat meant to keep a rival at a distance.

Which Looney Tunes cat spends his career trying to catch Tweety Bird?

Sylvester first appeared in 1945 opposite a henpecked lovebird, not Tweety; the two were first paired in Tweetie Pie (1947), which won Warner Bros. its first cartoon Oscar.

The ship's cat Unsinkable Sam is said to have survived three sinkings in 1941, starting with which German battleship?

Bismarck: the tale has the cat pulled from the wreckage in May 1941 and then outliving HMS Cossack and Ark Royal, but museum curators note that no survivor's account places him aboard the German ship.

Neither Cold War superpower did it: which country launched the first cat into space, in 1963?

France sent Félicette up on a Véronique rocket from the Sahara in October 1963 and recovered her alive by parachute; long misreported as a tom called Félix, she now has a statue at the International Space University.

The native Van cats of Turkey are nicknamed for which unusual habit?

Van cats are nicknamed 'swimming cats' for their fondness for the water around Lake Van; the pedigreed Turkish Van breed was developed in Britain in the 1950s from cats given to two photographers.

Which rock star wrote the 1991 song 'Delilah' for his favourite cat?

Freddie Mercury shared his London home with a houseful of cats, most of them rescues, and had a portrait painted of each one; 'Delilah', on the album Innuendo, was written for his favourite.

The Burmese breed descends from Wong Mau, a brown cat brought to the US in 1930 from which present-day country?

Myanmar, then called Burma: Dr Joseph Thompson brought Wong Mau home to San Francisco, and the new breed caught on so fast that hybrids filled the shows and the US registry suspended it in 1947.

What does the Cornish Rex's soft, wavy coat lack that most cats' coats have?

Guard hairs: with no stiff outer coat over its fine, wavy fur, a Cornish Rex feels silky, sheds little and chills easily, so it seeks out laps and other warm spots.

Which physicist devised a 1935 thought experiment about a cat sealed in a box, both alive and dead?

Erwin Schrödinger meant the cat as a criticism, not a proposal. He devised it in a discussion with Albert Einstein to show what he saw as the problems with rival views of quantum mechanics.

Which spy agency ran Acoustic Kitty, a 1960s project that fitted cats with hidden microphones?

The CIA had a vet implant a microphone in a cat's ear canal and a transmitter at the base of its skull. The agency cancelled Acoustic Kitty in 1967, concluding it would not be practical for real spy work.

Stubbs, a cat whose office was a general store, was honorary mayor of Talkeetna in which US state?

Alaska's tiny Talkeetna has no real mayor, so Stubbs held the honorary title from 1997 until he died in 2017. Each afternoon he drank from a wine or margarita glass laced with catnip at a nearby restaurant.

Oscar, a nursing-home cat in Rhode Island, made headlines in 2007 for apparently predicting what?

Patients' deaths were Oscar's grim speciality: he napped beside residents a few hours before they died. After 25 accurate calls, staff phoned families whenever he settled next to someone.

CC, a cat born at Texas A&M University in 2001, made history as the first pet ever to be what?

CC, short for CopyCat, was cloned from a cat named Rainbow but did not share her coat colours. Hair colouring is shaped by more than DNA, so the copy was no lookalike.

Which everyday name for a male cat was probably boosted by a 1760 children's book about a cat?

Tom the Cat appears in The Life and Adventures of a Cat, a popular children's book of its day. The name Tom was already being given to young male cats around 1300.

The Boxing Cats, an 1894 short of two cats sparring in gloves, was filmed in which inventor's studio?

Thomas Edison's Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey, was the world's first film studio. Its camera recorded the feline bout more than a century before cat videos filled the internet.

In Norse mythology, which goddess associated with love and war rides a chariot pulled by two cats?

Freyja also owns a cloak of falcon feathers and the necklace Brísingamen. The Prose Edda calls her the most approachable of the gods for people to pray to.

Which art museum has kept cats in its basement since an empress ordered them in to hunt mice in 1745?

The Hermitage was still the Winter Palace when Empress Elizabeth ordered cats in, and the city of Kazan sent five of its best mousers.

Towser, a cat credited by Guinness with catching 28,899 mice, guarded what kind of business?

A whisky distillery, Glenturret, laid Towser's catch out on its still house floor each morning. Guinness auditors watched her for several days and estimated her lifetime total statistically.

Why do vets advise against giving an adult cat a saucer of cow's milk?

Most are lactose intolerant: adult cats lack enough lactase, the enzyme that breaks down milk sugar, so a bowlful can cause soft stools or diarrhoea.

Which garage fluid is a notorious cause of fatal poisoning in cats?

Antifreeze brings on kidney failure within 12 to 24 hours in cats, far sooner than in dogs. Some makers add a bitter flavouring to its ethylene glycol to put pets and children off drinking it.

Onions and garlic are dangerous for cats because compounds in them damage what?

Red blood cells are damaged by compounds found across the Allium family, chives included, and enough damage leaves a cat anaemic.

Which compound makes chocolate poisonous to cats, at even lower doses than for dogs?

Theobromine is broken down much more slowly by animals than by humans, so a modest amount of chocolate can build up to a poisonous dose.

Which absorbent material did Edward Lowe start selling in bags as 'Kitty Litter' for cats in 1947?

Clay's talent for the job was an accidental discovery by Lowe, and it is the most common litter material, ahead of recycled paper pellets and silica crystals.

FIV, a virus sometimes called feline AIDS, passes from cat to cat mainly through what?

Deep bite wounds carry an infected cat's saliva into the other cat's tissues. Males, which bite more often while defending their patch, are infected at higher rates than females.

Which US state became the first to ban the declawing of cats, with a law signed in July 2019?

New York allows the operation only to treat a medical condition in the cat. Declawing is more drastic than it sounds: the surgeon amputates all or part of the end bone of each toe.

Panleukopenia, a highly contagious virus that cats are vaccinated against, is often known by what name?

Feline distemper is a confusing nickname: the culprit is a parvovirus, a close relative of the one that causes parvo in dogs. It can also infect raccoons and mink.

Which insecticide in many flea and tick treatments for dogs is dangerous to cats, who clear it far more slowly?

Permethrin appears in dog products at concentrations of 45% or more, which is not safe for cats. At 5% or less it generally causes them no trouble.

What historical name is given to the plastic cone a cat wears to stop it licking a wound?

Elizabethan collar comes from the ruffs worn in the Elizabethan era. Pet owners know the device by ruder names too, including the lamp-shade, the radar dish and the cone of shame.

Ringworm, a skin infection that cats can pass to people, is caused by what kind of organism?

A fungus causes ringworm, and no worm is involved. The species cats usually carry, Microsporum canis, is named after dogs yet turns up more often in cats.

A pet cat's identification microchip, about the size of a rice grain, is usually injected where?

Between the shoulder blades, at the back of the neck, is the usual site in cats and dogs. The chip has no battery and stays inert until a scanner's radio waves power it to send its ID number.

When trimming a cat's claws, owners are told never to cut into which pink core of nerves and blood vessels?

The quick shows as the pink part of a cat's nail, so only the sharp tip should be trimmed. If it is nicked by accident, a styptic powder or stick stops the bleeding.

Which largely preventable health problem do studies find in 50 to 90% of cats older than four?

Dental disease in cats usually means gingivitis, periodontitis or tooth resorption. Daily toothbrushing can prevent most forms, and most cats can be trained to accept it.

Which plant oil has caused weakness, tremors and even death in cats when strong doses were put on their skin?

Tea tree oil, distilled from the leaves of an Australian tree, is highly toxic when swallowed. The standing advice is to keep it away from pets and children.

A middle-aged or older cat that loses weight despite a ravenous appetite most likely has an overactive what?

Thyroid gland overactivity is the most common hormone disorder in cats, and weight loss shows up in 98% of cases. Vets routinely test elderly cats' blood for it.

Which nutrient must cats get ready-made from their food because they cannot convert plant carotenoids into it?

Vitamin A comes ready-made in liver, but balance matters: cats fed exclusively on liver can develop vitamin A toxicity.

Which East Asian plant, also called matatabi, excites many cats that show no reaction to catnip?

Silver vine is a species of kiwifruit whose dried fruit galls are ground into a powder for cats. Its effect lasts 5 to 30 minutes, after which a cat ignores it for about an hour.

What bakery nickname describes a cat sitting with its paws and tail tucked under its body?

Loaf, or catloaf, is thought to show a cat feels relaxed and unthreatened, since it has no need to sit ready to attack. The pose may also help it keep a comfortable body temperature.

Frenetic random activity periods, or FRAPs, are a cat behaviour better known by what nickname?

The zoomies, also called midnight crazies or mad half-hours, are normal and healthy in cats and dogs alike. They often strike right after a bath or a trip to the litter box.

Which gentle eye signal do cats give their owners as a sign of affection and comfort?

A slow blink, with the eyelids lowered, also tells other cats and people that a cat is relaxed and comfortable in its surroundings.

A cat that twitches its tail quickly from side to side, outside of stalking prey, is most likely feeling what?

Irritated cats flick the tail as a warning that they are about to lash out with teeth or claws. A hunting cat makes the same rapid movement while crouched with its tail held low.

A cat lying on its back with its belly exposed may be communicating what feeling?

Trust or comfort is the likely message, but the pose is no invitation. An exposed belly leaves a cat vulnerable, yet cats also roll onto their backs to defend themselves with their claws, or to bask in bright sunlight.

What does a direct stare, seen mostly in high-ranking cats, usually communicate to another cat?

A challenge or threat is the message, and lower-ranking cats usually withdraw in response. Cats fix the same hard look on prey and on rivals for their patch.

Which excited sound do cats sometimes make while observing or stalking prey such as birds?

Chattering is made with the mouth held tensely open. One suggestion is that the noise mimics the calls of prey such as birds and rodents.

Which cat sound, also called a chirrup, do mother cats use to call their kittens in the nest?

A trill is also how cats return a greeting from another cat or a person. Kittens recognise their own mother's version and do not respond to the calls of other mothers.

What name is given to the grimace a cat pulls, upper lip curled back, after sniffing a strong scent?

The flehmen response takes its name from a German verb meaning 'to bare the upper teeth'. A cat holds the pose for several seconds, and horses, goats and tigers pull the same face.

In which film does the ship's cat, Jones, escape with Ripley in a shuttle seconds before the Nostromo explodes?

Alien ends with just two survivors of the Nostromo: Ripley and Jones, whom she settles into stasis beside her for the long journey back to Earth.

Which James Bond villain was at first shown only as a pair of hands stroking a white cat?

Ernst Stavro Blofeld's face stayed off screen in his first two appearances. His cat-stroking became a trope for the criminal mastermind across popular fiction.

Which actor, whose Zorro inspired the animators, voices the sword-fighting Puss in Boots in the Shrek films?

Antonio Banderas voices Puss in the English, Spanish and Italian versions. His casting led the filmmakers to make the cat Spanish rather than the fairy tale's Italian or French.

Snowbell, a family cat disgusted at becoming the pet of a mouse, appears in which film?

Stuart Little sees Snowbell scheme with a gang of alley cats to get rid of the mouse, then panic that he will be thrown out of the house if his part is exposed.

In Disney's 1950 film Cinderella, what devilish name belongs to the Tremaine family's pet cat?

Lucifer never speaks: his snarls and yowls were vocal effects by June Foray in the original film, and Frank Welker took over for the sequels.

Orangey, the only cat to win two PATSY Awards, earned the second opposite Audrey Hepburn in which film?

Breakfast at Tiffany's cast Orangey as Holly Golightly's pet, 'the poor slob without a name'. His first PATSY had come a decade earlier for the title role in Rhubarb.

In Stephen King's Pet Sematary, which family cat is hit by a truck and returns from the grave?

Church comes back to the Creed house the day after he is buried, and the family's troubles begin. Louis Creed later kills the reanimated cat with an injection.

In Men in Black, the galaxy that both sides are hunting hangs from the collar of a cat with which name?

Orion is the answer to the film's riddle. A dying extraterrestrial says 'the galaxy is on Orion's Belt', and Agent J only later realises the belt is a cat's collar.

In Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service, what is the name of the young witch's talking black cat?

Jiji is Kiki's familiar and sets off with her on her mother's old broomstick. On her first delivery he has to pose as a stuffed toy cat until she can retrieve the real one.

Heartworm, a parasite that also infects cats, travels from host to host through the bite of which insect?

Mosquitoes are the worm's essential go-between: it cannot complete its life cycle without one. Dogs are its main host, but ferrets, bears and even seals can be infected.

Which comedian played the wisecracking title character in the 2003 film of Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat?

Mike Myers landed the part in March 2002 after several other actors were considered. His Cat wears a large red bow tie and a red-and-white striped top hat.

Bob, a stray cat who played himself in a 2016 film, befriended a homeless man in which city?

London's streets were home to James Bowen, whose books about Bob inspired the film. The real Bowen makes a cameo, asking his own character for an autograph.

Which actress voices Sassy, the pampered Himalayan cat in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey?

Sally Field's Sassy travels home alongside two dogs, Chance and Shadow, voiced by Michael J. Fox and Don Ameche.