Names of feline predators. Wild cats, beautiful and dangerous

"Golden cat"

"Jaguarundi"

The black panther Bagheera from R. Kipling's fairy tale "Mowgli" is a very common mutation of the leopard. Often one or two black cubs appear in the offspring of usually colored parents. The usual coloring of a leopard is a yellow background of varying intensity, densely dotted with black spots, which on the face and tips of the paws significantly decrease in size, almost becoming speckled. However, even in the panther (the word itself is consonant with the Latin name of the genus), spotting remains. If you look closely, you can see that absolutely black spots stand out against the dark smoky background. At a considerable distance the color appears uniformly black.

The biology and behavior of typical leopards and black panthers are the same. They feed on birds, lizards and mammals. Among wild animals, antelopes and monkeys are the most common victims. At the sight of a leopard, flocks of monkeys raise a heart-rending cry, warning all living things for many miles around of danger. But sometimes he still manages to take one of them by surprise. It happens that the leopard begins to raid surrounding villages, destroying dogs and livestock. Local residents bring rich gifts to their gods with a request to protect their homes from a predator. The leopard avoids meeting people and extremely rarely becomes a cannibal.

The range covers all of Africa and South Asia. There are currently 21 known subspecies, but they are all quite rare.

In captivity, leopards live for about twenty years. There are known cases of successful crossing of them with lions and jaguars.

In a number of ways, it differs significantly from other cats.

Even many taxonomists disagree about the correctness of classifying the cheetah genus as a member of the cat family. Not all scientists find sufficient grounds for this. Pay attention, for example, to the fact that cheetah babies can retract their claws, like kittens, only up to 10 - 15 weeks; later the claws become almost motionless, and according to this, the metacarpus is more reminiscent of a dog's.

In general, the body structure of a cheetah almost repeats the silhouette of a greyhound, and some aspects of behavior are also more characteristic of dogs. But this is the only wild cat that, being in a good mood, purrs like a domestic Murka.

The behavior of the cheetah when hunting is curious: it sneaks up on the antelope, using uneven terrain as cover, at a distance of 150 to 200 meters, after which a short, rapid chase begins, during which the predator often reaches speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour. At the same time, the body of the fastest animal on Earth is ideally organized for cutting through the air, and the tail seems to continue the line of the spine.

If the prey does not fall into the strong clawed paws in the first few seconds, it is saved: it is easier for a cheetah to start all over again than to engage in a prolonged pursuit.

Often these animals hunt in pairs or large families, which is also atypical for cats.

Cheetahs are better tamed than other cats.

People noticed this about three thousand years ago, when they began to use them for hunting. The tamed cheetah was fitted with eye caps similar to those used in modern falconry, placed in a two-wheeled cart and taken to the hunting site. There the predator's eyes were opened and released.

There are detailed descriptions of such hunting in Egypt, India and Mongolia. Of course, hunting with cheetahs was affordable only for very wealthy people, and these animals soon became a symbol of wealth and power.

It was not possible to breed them in captivity, and therefore it was constantly necessary to catch young cheetahs in the wild and tame them. This circumstance, as well as the systematic settlement by humans of the steppe regions, which served as a living space for the cheetah, led to a significant decrease in their numbers.

Today, large populations of these animals are found only in eastern and southwestern Africa. In the rest of this continent, as well as in Asia, cheetahs have disappeared completely, as, for example, in India they have become very rare. They live mainly in arid areas, avoiding open flat areas and dense thickets of trees.

Cheetahs feed on small and medium-sized ungulates. Only in exceptional cases do they attack large antelopes. In times of famine they catch rodents and birds.

It is still almost impossible to get offspring from cheetahs in zoos. In general, zoo workers unanimously come to the conclusion that keeping these animals in captivity is extremely labor-intensive.

The lion stands out noticeably even against the background of its closest relatives: leopard, jaguar and tiger. His behavior is unusual: a lion is a social animal, he spends his entire life in a pack; Lions also hunt in packs.

Its phenotype is unusual: the unique sexual diversity of lions is well known - males are decorated with truly regal manes. But in terms of its genotype, the lion is not so sharply different from its other relatives.

Science knows both crosses of lions and tigresses - ligers - and offspring of tigers and lionesses - tigeons. The leopard and lioness also managed to obtain viable offspring; the cubs were called leopons. Interestingly, most fossil remains of large cats, combining the characteristics of a tiger and a lion, are found in Europe and Northern Asia.

Probably, the common ancestors of both animals, as researchers believe, appeared precisely at these latitudes, and not in the equatorial regions.

Over time, in the western part of the range of these prehistoric animals, the type of cave lion (and modern lion) was formed, and in the eastern part, the type of tiger was formed. Until recently, the lion was very widespread.

Just a few thousand years ago, it lived not only in Asia Minor and Western Asia, but also in Greece, the Balkans and here in Transcaucasia. Some archaeologists even believe that the lion also lived in China in historical times. Several centuries ago, the lion could be found in many areas of Asia - from Mesopotamia and Iran to Central India and Bengal. Now the Asiatic lion has been exterminated everywhere; Only in western India, on the Kathiyawar Peninsula, in the Gir Nature Reserve, a small handful of animals, the last descendants of the Asian fauna, live under strict protection.

And African lions have suffered greatly from human recklessness. There are no longer in the world the famous Berber lions, large, squat animals with a luxurious black mane covering their head, shoulders and belly. But even at the beginning of the century, these lions were found in the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa.

Now the possessions of the “king of beasts” begin only to the south of the Sahara. He prefers to live in savannas and semi-deserts, and only in southern Africa one of the varieties of lions, decorated with a characteristic light mane, chose the Kalahari Desert as their place of residence.

A hundred years ago, the largest modern lion, the Cape lion, lived in the extreme south of the continent. Unfortunately, immigrants from Europe, the Boers who settled in the Cape Province, were good hunters... the Cape lion was also exterminated. Zoologists count ten varieties of modern lions, including Asian, Berber and Cape.

Lions are divided according to the size and color of the mane, the overall coloring of the animal, as well as weight and average body size. However, this classification is disputed by many scientists, who believe that there is actually no particular difference between some of these subspecies. Mention should also be made of the so-called “zoo lions”. These are lions that have been living in captivity for several generations. Among their ancestors were representatives of many species of wild lions, including those that were exterminated. That is why animals similar to Berber lions have survived to this day in zoological gardens. The appearance of the “king of beasts” is known so well that it is possible to dwell only on some details that usually escape attention.

The main color of the upper body: white-gray (Asiatic lions), cream, sandy yellow, dark ocher. The lower part of the body is painted in lighter colors. As they age, the mane of some lion species grows and covers the shoulders and belly.

In adult animals it is completely black or mixed with dark brown. Other subspecies of lions (primarily the Masai) are deprived by nature: their mane is small; it does not grow on the shoulders and forehead; its color is dark brown.

A lion's ears are rounded; they are black on the outside with a yellow spot in the middle. Young lions, before the onset of puberty (and lionesses before the birth of their cubs), retain traces of the spotted pattern that adorned the little lion cubs. Both lions and lionesses have a noticeable tassel at the end of their tail - this is where their last vertebra stands out.

The length of adult lions ranges from 2.3 to 3.1 m, the tail accounts for 4/11 of the part. Adult lions weigh at least 125 kg.

In captivity, animals are much larger, because they eat regularly and have to move a little. The lions living behind the bars of the zoo have a thicker and more luxurious mane than their wild relatives: for those, it constantly flutters and gets torn out when they have to make their way through the thickets. By the way, the mane of Indian lions, which have to live in the mentioned reserve in the Gir forest (Kathiyawar), abounding in thorny bushes, is especially affected.

So they note, when describing the lions there, that “they have no mane” or “their mane is sparse.” As already noted, lions live in packs.

The size of the territory occupied by a flock varies greatly. They depend on the number of lions in a given area, as well as on the abundance or lack of food. By food, lions understand almost everything that moves. They don’t even disdain locusts and mice.

They attack young elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and buffalos (adults are spared; lions sometimes cannot cope with them). Well, their favorite food is ungulates: antelopes, gazelles, zebras, warthogs, goats, sheep, cattle.

A defeated animal most often becomes the prey of the entire pack. Lions usually hunt together, but they are not successful in every foray.

Sometimes African kings have to go hungry for whole days. Interestingly, lions never kill for fun. As a rule, they are content with only one hunted animal, and only when all the meat has been eaten do they go hunting again. Therefore, their victims learned to distinguish well-fed lions from hungry ones. They are not afraid of the first ones at all, but if they meet hungry people, all the animals, having noticed them, scatter in all directions at lightning speed.

Therefore, as befits monarchs, the king of animals has to be moderately insidious and attack at a watering hole, or, approaching the prey in a flock, drive it into ambush.

Lions rarely attack humans, unless old lions abandoned by everyone or animals that were once crippled by hunters attack people out of hunger when they cannot catch up with the quickly fleeing prey. In African reserves, where there is plenty of food and no one threatens the lions, they are very peaceful towards tourists, even if they sometimes annoy them and prevent them from resting peacefully. The lion's main enemy is a man with a gun, ready to trample the law of the savannas and jungles everywhere and mock the kings in a plebeian manner.

Herds of elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses that come out to warm up on land are also dangerous for lions, but lions avoid coming across them.

Sometimes, having lost himself at a watering hole, a lion can become the prey of huge crocodiles; they drag the lord of the land into the depths of the waters and there tear him to pieces. Old lions, driven away by a pack, often die from the teeth of hyena dogs.

In Asia, sometimes a lion and a tiger meet. The tiger almost always wins. In terms of his physical size, he is stronger, stronger, and he always hunts alone, and then one on one it is easier for him to stand up for himself than for a lion who is used to doing everything together. It is possible that the lion in many parts of Asia was replaced not only by man, but also by the tiger, establishing its own order there.

Lion cubs have even more enemies, because they are quite helpless. As soon as the mother leaves, many of the predators living nearby (including birds of prey) are ready to tear the babies to pieces. It has long been noticed that lions (especially young ones) are easily tamed and become attached to humans like a dog. In ancient times they were even used in military campaigns. In general, a lion, as a social creature, has all the makings to become a pet.

If “domestic” cats have accomplished a brilliant expansion of the Earth’s territory in a relatively short period of time, then larger representatives of the cat tribe prefer to live in rather limited spaces.

For example, the Jaguar lives exclusively in South and Central America. Until 1492, the enlightened European public had no idea about the existence of Jaguars.

Undisputed sources report that the Jaguar was discovered almost simultaneously with the discovery of America by the famous Portuguese traveler Cristobal Colom, known to the general public as Christopher Columbus.

Stepping unsteadily after a long sea voyage onto what he believed was the Indian coast, Columbus saw an incredibly beautiful animal, the great navigator was shocked and said: “My God! Look at the Jaguar!”

In appearance, this American beast is the spitting image of a leopard. And in fact, both animals are close relatives. It even turned out that females, a cross between a leopard and a jaguar, are capable of

procreation.

Currently, the jaguar lives in the territory from 35 degrees north latitude (however, this figure is called rather by tradition - after all, here in the American states

Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, the jaguar is practically exterminated) up to 40 degrees south latitude (Chile, Argentina), that is, its habitat is smaller than that of the puma.

The body of the jaguar is heavy and strong; he looks squat, even awkward. The head is massive; the structure of the skull of a jaguar is perhaps closer to a tiger than to a leopard,

but painted the same as the last one

Scientists have not yet agreed on the exact number of jaguar subspecies. Previously, there were eight subspecies, dividing animals according to their sizes (the coloring and patterns on the fur coat were too much

vary). The smallest jaguars are found in Honduras and Guatemala; the largest are in Brazil in the Mato Grosso region (a state on the border with Bolivia), and the length of the animals ranges from 1.6 to 2.4 meters (a third is the tail).

The main color varies from sand to bright reddish ocher. The body is covered with both solid and ring spots, as well as rosettes, and inside the latter there is fur

slightly darker than the general color. The head and wide powerful paws are speckled with black. In the lower part of the body there is a transverse pattern: on the stomach there are large black spots, and on the throat and chest there are stripes made up of specks merged together. On the tail of the animal there is also a noticeable pattern of ring spots located side by side and

rosettes (the wool inside is light).

Jaguars have rounded ears, black on the outside with a yellow spot in the middle. Melanos animals are also often found, looking very much like black panthers (although their large size gives away the breed).

The jaguar lives almost everywhere: in dense impenetrable forests, in open forests, in the steppe, in coastal groves, and in reed thickets. He prefers to move on the ground, but he can also climb trees very deftly.

This cat is not afraid of water - she loves to swim and swims well.

That is why the inhabitants of rivers and lakes have to feed this predator: capybaras (capybaras), turtles, and fish come to him for lunch, and the jaguar hunts fish from the shore, throwing them out of the water with powerful blows of their paws.

In general, all American animals have to be afraid of the voracious jaguar; even tapirs end up with him for dinner, not at all as table companions. This born hunter overtakes monkeys even at the tops of trees or finishes them off near a watering hole.

Jaguars are active both at night and during the day, but their favorite time is the alarming, vague twilight. Although people have talked a lot about the bloodthirstiness of the jaguar, about its blind, indomitable thirst to kill, these stories often turn into tales. The jaguar is not as scary as it is imagined, and a person should rather call himself a “natural killer”. Jaguars are found quite often in zoos. If you start training them from childhood, you can tame them to a certain extent.

However, the most beautiful of cats is undoubtedly the panther.

Borges cites the following text attributed to Leonardo, who, as is known, was not only a most skilled painter, a brilliant scientist who invented the helicopter and water closet, but also an unsurpassed zoologist: “The African panther is like a lioness, only its paws are longer and its body is more flexible.

Her beauty delights other animals, who would accompany her constantly whenever they were not afraid of her terrible gaze.

Knowing this property of his, the panther lowers his eyes; animals approach to admire her beauty, and then she grabs the one who is closest and devours him."

This large American cat is also called a cougar, black or silver lion, and even a panther. Thirty of its subspecies are found in southwest Alaska, Central Canada, the United States, and Central and South America.

Cougars are individualists. The male occupies a territory of 10 - 50 square kilometers, the female is content with less - up to 20 square kilometers. Cougars live in pairs only for a short period of time.

There are two or three kittens in a litter, sometimes more. Newborns are born much darker than their parents. Their skin is covered with distinct black spots, and their tails have rings of the same color. Milk is the main nutrition for babies up to two - two and a half months. Then they switch to solid food, and at six months they already help their mother in hunting.

Pumas feed on mice, rabbits, reptiles, frogs, grasshoppers, birds and more significant prey - small and medium-sized ungulates. It happens that they attack flocks of sheep, for which they are called “harmful creatures” in agricultural areas. The cougar's signature trick when hunting is an instant lunge followed by a bite of the victim in the scruff of the neck. If the maneuver is unsuccessful, the cat does not pursue the victim for long. The puma buries the remains of the carcass in the snow or hides it under brushwood in order to return to them again the next day, or even the day after.

The dexterous, agile and flexible puma perfectly climbs trees and travels without fear along cliffs, jumping from a height of 12 - 15 meters. The puma's jump is so beautiful and impressive that many animal artists depict it in such a flight.

Contrary to rumors about its habit of screaming in a wild voice, the puma is an unusually quiet animal. And those terrible screeches attributed to her actually belong to a barn owl. True, sometimes during the mating season this cat actually emits heartbreaking screams. But this does not happen for long, as we already mentioned. After all, a married couple stays together for only about two weeks.

For many years, the puma has been a traditional resident of zoos. There have been many cases of cougars living there for more than twenty years. Interestingly, at the end of the last century, in one of the zoological gardens in Great Britain, a successful crossing of a male leopard with a female puma - animals with different habitats - took place.

About 50 years ago, snow leopards were not particularly rare; they were not even protected by the state. Hunting for them in a number of areas of distribution was allowed all year round and was encouraged, since in those places snow leopards were considered harmful predators.

Their skins were highly valued by the local population.

Items of clothing made from the fur of this animal—malachai hats and fur coats—testified to the wealth of their owners. Malachai on a hunter’s head, for example, meant high skill, experience and fearlessness. Such people were held in high esteem and respected by everyone.

It is difficult to calculate how many snow leopards were killed in the past; a significant part of the skins of killed animals did not arrive at state collection points, but were processed in an artisanal way. And yet we have some data. At the beginning of this century, approximately 800-1000 snow leopards were killed annually in the world. In some years, up to 500 skins of these animals were sold at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair in Russia. But already at a fur auction in Leningrad in 1967, only 10 snow leopard skins were put up for sale.

The number of leopards in the wild has also decreased as a result of capture for replenishment of domestic and foreign zoos.

Thus, from 1936 to 1969, about 400 animals were caught within the USSR.

The snow leopard is listed in the International Red Book and the Red Book of the USSR as an endangered species.

The snow leopard has another common name, the snow leopard. It took root a long time ago. Back in the 17th century, Russian merchants and fur traders adopted this name from local Asian hunters, many of whom spoke the Turkic dialect. They pronounced this word as “irbiz”, which meant “snow cat”.

Previously, the leopard was called the snow leopard or leopard. However, it is not. And although they are very similar, a leopard is still a leopard, a leopard is a leopard.

The snow leopard is an inhabitant of mountainous regions.

And snowy because the animal lives in the mountains at an altitude of up to 4.5 thousand meters above sea level, where there are snowfields, ice tongues and mountain peaks covered with eternal white caps, where it can be very cold and strong icy winds blow.

He lives in the Pamirs, Altai, Tien Shan, Tibet and the Himalayas. Sometimes, in search of prey, it rises very high - up to three thousand meters. This is probably the reason why its fur is thicker and longer than that of a leopard, reaching 12 centimeters on its belly. The snow leopard hunts mountain ungulates, does not disdain mice and sometimes encroaches on the mighty giants - yaks. After a grueling hunt, you won’t mind soaking up the sun. He also has his own games - he really likes to ride off cliffs on his back, deftly dodging and landing on his paws.

The snow leopard is well adapted to these conditions: dressed in a warm fur coat, the muscles of the paws are very strong and with ease, in one fell swoop the leopard jumps over gorge up to 10 meters wide.

With one jump he can deftly overcome a height of 2.5-3 meters, as if flying from one ledge to another.

He walks without fear along rocky ledges above the abyss, can jump from a great height and attack his prey with sniper precision.

The favorite habitats of the snow leopard are rocky areas of the Mountains, piles of stones, screes, where there is usually little snow, the winds blow it away, it is easier to hide from bad weather, find a place for an ambush, and hide from enemies. Here the animal also makes a lair, choosing a suitable cave, crevice or stone canopy. He spends daylight hours in these shelters, and at dusk he goes out hunting.

Snow leopards live in pairs and raise kittens together. In the first days after the birth of the cubs, the female leopard saves them from the cold by covering the den with fur torn from her own body. Not all wild cats are famous for such care for their offspring, except perhaps the jungle cat.

The snow leopard has no animal enemies; only in winter there can be serious clashes with hungry wolves, but the snow leopard can fend for itself.

Man brought the snow leopards into trouble; he must atone for his guilt before nature and prevent the extinction of the spotted beauties.

Once upon a time, most of Asia belonged to him. Bones of tigers of the Pleistocene era have been found even in northern Siberia and the New Siberian Islands.

A few centuries ago, its habitat area was delineated by the following boundaries: 50 degrees north latitude (Kazakhstan), 50 degrees east longitude (Northern Iran), 140 degrees east longitude (mouth of the Amur), 8 degrees south latitude (Sunda Islands).

At that time, in this vast territory, tigers were not found only in the Himalayas. But in the last two centuries, man has mercilessly pushed back the beast. So it turned out that everywhere the tiger was almost completely or completely exterminated.

The first victim was the Persian tiger, which inhabited the western part of its range. Medium in size, with clearly visible sideburns, this tiger was distinguished by long and thick winter fur, a short mane at the withers and an equally short, light-colored mane on the belly. Now in the north of Iran only a few dozen animals have survived

In the east of Nepal, Assam, Burma, Thailand, Pakistan and all of Western India, the short-haired Indian, or Bengal, tiger lives. It is also called the royal tiger, although it is smaller than the Amur tiger.

In southern China and Vietnam, tigers are lighter in color. Two more species of these animals live in Indonesia. The smallest tigers are found in Sumatra, distinguished by their very dark colors. Javan tigers are similar to them, only slightly larger and have larger whiskers.

The tiger's closest relative is the lion.

The total length of the Amur tiger reaches three meters, including the tail (about one meter). In general, in all tigers the tail accounts for a third of the total length. The weight of a tiger is usually no more than 250 kg; Amur predators are larger. Thus, the Guinness Book of Records reports on an animal weighing 384. The Guinness Book of Records reports on an animal weighing 384 kg, shot here, in the Sikhote-Alin mountains, in 1950. The further south tigers live, the smaller they are.

Speaking about coloring, we note that our tigers, long-haired northerners, are lighter in color than their southern counterparts. Their fur is light yellow in color with wide, also faded stripes.

Bengal tigers roam among the lush vegetation, sparkling with red ocher colors. This fiery coloring is cut through by bright black stripes. However, on the shoulders and hips the stripes may disappear. There are also tigers with very wide, closely spaced stripes.

The tigers of Indonesia, adorned with large whiskers, have an even darker ocher coloring. In addition, the sides of Sumatran tigers are lined with wide, frequent stripes. These animals may be small, but they look gloomy.

Javanese predators are dotted with narrow double stripes; when they meet, such patterns make the eyes dark.

The eyes of tigers are bordered by a white stripe; ears are round; they are black on the outside with a white spot in the middle. Short narrow transverse spots are visible along the ridge.

Perhaps the tiger's stripes are the same rosettes, the same rings that decorate the sides of leopards and jaguars; Only in the process of evolution did they stretch out so that the pattern familiar to all cats is no longer recognizable. But in the jungle, this outfit perfectly camouflages a predator, allowing it to easily sneak up on its prey.

Tigers usually live in forests or thickets: jungles, Siberian taiga, dense bushes or reeds - everything suits them; in the mountains they rise to a height of 1500-2000 meters. The properties they occupy are huge - some tigers roam an area of ​​1500-4200 square meters. km. The size of hunting grounds depends primarily on the number of ungulates living in these areas.

The tiger does not choose any one time of day to hunt; a lucky chance comes along or the feeling of hunger overcomes, and he goes for prey. It affects mainly land animals and large birds. Because of its weight, the tiger rarely climbs trees. But he swims well and loves to swim. In addition, the water feeds it: sitting on the shore or entering the water, with deft blows of its paw it throws salmon or other large fish, turtles and even small crocodiles onto the ground, and then devours them.

Of the animals living in its neighborhood, the tiger usually does not touch only adult elephants and rhinoceroses. Attacks wild bulls, wild boars, bears and, of course, any deer, including moose. Leopards and wolves run away from the tiger, afraid to meet him. If they are caught, the tiger will bite and eat them too.

All domestic animals are equally in awe of this formidable beast - he is ready to tear apart both a camel and a cat. Well, if hunger strikes, then the tiger eats everything it sees: berries and other plant foods, large insects, frogs, non-venomous snakes, any birds and small mammals (rats, jungle cats, foxes). He will not even hesitate to feed on carrion. Occasionally you come across tigers - cannibals, terrifying the entire area. They usually become old animals or those crippled by hunters, unable to get food for themselves. It is man, frivolously invading the established world of nature, unwittingly or intentionally destroying it, who forces tigers to resist to the last drop of blood and devour uninvited strangers.

Besides humans, the tiger has almost no enemies.

In the wild, tigers usually live up to 20-25 years. They are kept very often in zoos and circuses - primarily Amur, Bengal, Sumatran and sometimes Vietnamese. With good care, animals become very meek and become attached to humans.

In nature, tigers live alone. They converge only when tigresses come into heat (no specific seasonality is observed). Striped suitors sometimes get into fights over their beauties. Observations of zoo inhabitants show the opposite: tigers make good, caring fathers of the family.

For the first two to three years, tiger cubs remain with their mother. They reach sexual maturity only at three to four years (females) and four to five years (males). Female tiger cubs are born only once every two to three years, and almost half of them die when they are still young. That is why it is very difficult to restore the former population of tigers. This beautiful, majestic animal is on the verge of extinction.

If it is true that in the soul of every cat, even the most ordinary one, there lives a tiger, then in the soul of the jaguarundi there is probably a jaguar hiding. But again, you can’t tell by its appearance, the jaguarundi looks more like an ordinary cat, only long and thin. It weighs up to nine kilograms.

From the south of the United States to the north of Argentina, this wild cat is found: it is found in dense thickets, through which it crawls only thanks to its elongated body. If necessary, he will climb a tree.

Jaguarundi are not painted with spots, like, for example, tree-dwelling ocelots, but in a single color - reddish-brown, black or gray, occasionally with light spots. The female brings two or three kittens, which even in the same litter can be of different colors. Twice a year, during mating seasons, cats fight and scream loudly. The rest of the time, jaguarundi walk alone. What do they eat?

According to some reports, they hunt at dusk for birds, fish in streams and rodents, and, which is unusual for cats, they can pursue prey for a kilometer or more. They also come to feed on figs on plantations, and in zoos they do not refuse grapes and bananas.

Jaguarundi are easy to tame. But in nature they have become rare due to the destruction of their habitat.

Despite the centuries-old history of relationships between cats and humans, they have changed little, unlike other animals. In appearance, the domestic cat is surprisingly similar to its ancient ancestors.

You can only notice some changes in the structure of the ear, a more pronounced convexity of the temporal bones, shortening of the muzzle and variations in coloring.

On the other hand, she retained her proud character and independent lifestyle.

We can agree with the opinion of many researchers that the modern domestic cat, with the exception of some decorative breeds, cannot be considered in the full sense of domestic, since it almost entirely retains unchanged the habits and behavior of its wild relatives, only adapting them to new living conditions in the house .

Cats are very good at navigating unfamiliar surroundings, which is why, as a rule, they always find their way home without much difficulty. But if it is impossible to return to her previous home, she quickly adapts to new conditions and is even capable of leading a wild lifestyle.

The sounds that make up the “voice” of an animal (including a human) are produced by the vibration of the vocal cords in the larynx as air passes through them. The larynx is the part of the respiratory tract that carries air into and out of the lungs. With the shortening of the vocal cords, due to an increase in their tension, the pitch of the sound also increases. Normal cat meowing occurs in this way.

However, the purring of various members of the feline family, including our domestic cats, is a rapidly alternating impulse of sound originating in the larynx.

Each individual sound is caused by a sharp drop in air pressure after the separation of the right and left vocal cords. The laryngeal muscles are quickly excited by nerve impulses at a frequency of twenty to thirty per second. Whenever this happens, the vocal cords close and as a result, air pressure increases. When the muscle stimulation stops, the vocal cords sharply diverge and the air released due to this creates sound.

The intensity of the purring and its volume depend on the degree of stimulation of the animal, for example, on how it is stroked or talked to. Often purring, even in the presence of a person, occurs quietly, barely audible, but if you put your finger on the cat’s neck, it is easy to feel the vibrations of the larynx.

An alternative theory for the purring mechanism has been put forward, but it appears unrealistic.

This theory suggests that purring is caused by increased speed and turbulence in the flow of blood in the vein that returns blood from the back of the body. Turbulence creates vibration in the walls of this blood vessel where it passes through the chest, and this vibration is then transmitted through the air cavities to the head. However, this hypothesis needs additional research.

How important is a cat's tail? Many people think that the tail is the most important organ for balance. However, when a cat injures its tail, or when all or part of its tail has to be amputated, cats do just fine without it.

They are great at climbing trees and walking along fences just like cats with tails!

Dr. Robinson, who aptly called cats falling from heights traumatic fall syndrome, states that if you pick up a tailless cat and turn it upside down and then release it, the animal will right itself before it even reaches the floor, although in this case the height in this case is not more than two meters .

However, a long tail can probably help a cat maintain balance during sharp turns.

The joints of a cat's paws are designed in such a way that dads turn and rotate in them more freely than our arms and legs. When a cat walks, its front paws move inward, so the left and right paw prints are straight pins, and the front and hind paws (or rather, their tracks) match.

The hind legs do not have such a pronounced inward movement, and, nevertheless, the cat needs a very small point of support so that the hind legs do not have problems with support.

This helps her move easily along a fence or tree branch." Therefore, a tail is not everything when it comes to good balancing! At least the completely tailless Isle of Man cats have no reason to worry about losing a long appendage!

On the Isle of Man, several stories are told to explain why the local cats lost their tails. One of them says that Irish warriors used to decorate their helmets with cat tails.

Mother cats, fearing that their kittens would be killed for the sake of the warriors’ whims, bit off the kittens’ tails immediately after birth!

However, in reality, taillessness is purely genetic.

How do tailless cats communicate without a tail?

Susan Naffer, chairwoman of the Morris Animal Foundation of California and an amateur Isle of Man cat breeder (she has 10 Manx cats and one Cymric cat), says this: “My Isle of Man cats think with their heads, not their tails!”

She thinks that we communicate well and express ourselves without a tail, which is worse than her cats?!

She explains with conviction that Isle of Man cats don't worry about things they never needed to do. "The tail is just a protrusion, they don't care

But how, for example, will we understand, in the absence of a tail, whether our cats are happy? As Carl van Vechten said in his book "A Tiger in the House," a cat's tail held high signifies pride or contentment.

What does a tailless cat do if it experiences a feeling of pleasant satisfaction? Without a doubt, when a cat is relaxed and happy, it is obvious: the ears are raised expectantly, the pads of the paws are compressed and unclenched, the animal purrs - even tailless cats can do such obvious signs!

Thus, it is not difficult to imagine that for the countless tailless cats, beautiful with their strange beauty, which are plentiful all over the world, there are more important things in life than some kind of tail!

Who hasn't admired a mustachioed cat's face? A mustache is a mustache. Without a mustache, a cat is not a cat. But while admiring our pet’s luxurious mustache, we don’t always understand how important it is for him.

Not only for beauty, of course, but for everyday life.

Villagers believe: the longer a cat's whiskers, the better it is at catching mice. And there is some truth in this, since whiskers not only decorate a cat’s (dog, rabbit, rat...) face, but are also a sensory organ.

Special long hairs of the vibrissa (from the Latin vibrare to tremble) are located on the pads around the mouth, above the eyes, and on the “mole” on the cheek. The base of the vibrissa lies in the skin follicle sac, where specialized cells that perceive displacement and pressure, mechanoreceptors, entangled with the finest nerve fibers are located.

Vibrissa trembling is provided by muscle fibers that form a loop around the sac.

After all, the mustache (vibrissae) is an organ of touch, or at least an important part of this organ. They inform the animal about direct contact with objects located completely

close. And such objects include not only chairs, not only bowls, pots, in contact with which the cat is especially interested, but also the hands of owners (and non-owners too), mice, birds and other prey, and, finally, dogs, with which cats have a tense relationship in most cases. During the season of love, touch helps to establish and improve relationships between partners, and at a tender age - kittens communicate with

mother, and mothers with them. In a word, whiskers-vibrissae, using direct touch, inform about objects located from the cat at a distance of the length of the whiskers.

Of course, a cat can obtain information about these objects by directly touching them with fur or skin, but it is more profitable for her to come into contact with these objects a little earlier; it is clear that in this case, by proactively touching her victim with her whiskers, she will learn about it in advance and at least not by much, but will still be able to make a decision earlier. When she gets a little ahead of, for example, a running mouse, then it is these “slightly” that will bring her success.

Whiskers are of great benefit to a cat in many other life situations, for example, when she crawls into a narrow gap and is not very sure that this gap is accessible to her. And for wild cats, whiskers provide an invaluable service when sneaking up on prey, when cats are forced to make their way through dense bushes or difficult thickets.

What are the whiskers that give the cat such a unique appearance? These are tactile hairs that we see on our pet's upper lip. They are long, thick, conical rods, straight or slightly curved.

Special muscles provide their mobility, which makes the movements of your pet's whiskers somewhat funny. The number of mustaches on the right and left upper lips can be about 12 or more, and they are arranged in four horizontal rows.

The main feature of these vibrissae rods is elasticity, which is ensured by their conical narrowing towards the end, as well as by their thin structure

If the reader is fond of fishing and has dealt with a telescopic fishing rod, then it is easy for him to imagine the fine structure of the tactile hair, as well as the main principles of its operation. Any vibration caused by touching the tip is immediately transferred to the base of the rod, where your separation is located.

However, so far we have only talked about one tactile vibrissae hair, by the way, also called sinus hair, but in fact, they are located in greater numbers on the cat’s body and, above all, on the head.

In addition to the so-called mustache, groups of such hairs, although much shorter than the mustache, are located on the chin, above the eyes and in the cheek area.

In addition, the same hairs grow on the ankles, playing an important role when hunting for moving prey.

At the same time, hairs growing on other parts of the body have sensitivity to touch, although not as perfect as that of the vibrissae.

For example, if you look at the skin of your pet, you will easily find that individual hairs stick out from the smooth surface of the fur, which also perform tactile functions. Of course, they are softer than whiskers and not as sensitive, but they also help the cat determine where on the body someone is touching her.

Thus, there are many sensitive “antennas” located on the cat’s body, allowing it to more confidently navigate its immediate environment, identifying dangerous or, conversely, favorable contacts for it.

And therefore, when taking care of your pet, do not improve its appearance by cutting or, especially, pulling out curved whiskers: this will greatly complicate its ability to navigate in the surrounding space.

It was discovered that the removal of whiskers from an adult cat (trimming) causes biochemical disturbances and for some time changes the behavior of the animal and depresses its psyche. A sharp twitch on the whiskers causes discomfort in the animal and disrupts the consumption of glucose by the cells for several hours.

Given the scientific knowledge about the role of whiskers in behavior, it seems that some dog grooming patterns should be changed and (for example, poodles) mustaches should be left not only for beauty, but also to preserve mental health. You can’t spoil a wonderful sense organ for the sake of fashion!

The structure of a cat's eye is basically the same as that of a human.

Vision is based on the ability of organisms to detect light, the visible part of electromagnetic radiation.

The visual organ of the eyes perceives light thanks to the retina, which is part of the brain.

Light enters the retina through the pupil.

In many nocturnal animals, including cats, special tapetum formations are located near the photoreceptors, reflecting light not absorbed by the retinal cells back to the photoreceptors, which provides better vision at dusk.

The eyes of animals that have a tapetum glow in the dark.

In the retina, in addition to photoreceptors, there are several more layers of nerve cells, from which an electrical signal travels along the optic nerve to the brain.

The spaces that a cat sees with its right and left eyes (visual fields) overlap in front by 45% so that the animal can see the same object with both eyes at the same time.

This underlies the animal's ability to determine the shape of an object and the distance to it.

From a distance of one meter, cats can distinguish the distance of the area on which they are jumping with an accuracy of 3-5 cm.

Nerve cells in the cerebral cortex change their activity depending on whether the cat is shown a glowing line, spot or mouse.

Animals see due to the fact that light passes into the eye and irritates the nerve endings of the photosensitive layer, that is, the retina. Then these irritations are transmitted along the nerve fibers of the optic nerve to the brain and there they appear in the form of a “picture”.

If there is no light at all, then the cat will not be able to see anything at all, simply because there is no light entering the eye to irritate the nerve endings of the retina. Therefore, in complete darkness, a cat has no advantage over any other animal.

But in the twilight, sometimes so impenetrable that the human eye can perceive it as pitch darkness, a cat navigates among objects much better than us, especially if they move.

There are three main reasons that cause such vision.

First. There are three types of nerve endings in the retina, which, according to their shape, are called rods and cones. Cones respond most intensely to bright light, and these nerve endings are responsible for human color vision and the perception of small details. Rods, on the other hand, react to low-intensity light and are unable to produce sharp images.

Night vision, or more precisely, twilight vision, of all animals is due to the functioning of rods. The ratio of rods to cones in a cat's eye (approximately 25:1) is significantly higher than in the human eye (approximately 4:1).

Second. The cat, along with many domestic animals, but unlike humans, has a reflective layer located directly behind the retina.

Its action is that rays of light entering the eye and penetrating the retina, thereby irritating the nerve endings, are reflected immediately on the same nerve endings.

Consequently, each ray of light has a double stimulating effect on a specific nerve ending, creating a specific type of image intensification.

The presence of a blanket (tapetum) also explains the typical "cat's eye" effect, when a beam of light, for example, from car headlights, is directed from the darkness directly into the eyes. This light is reflected from the greenish-yellow blanket, and it seems that in the dark the eyes glow yellow or green light.

Third. In all animals, the pupil dilates in dim light and contracts in bright light, attempting to keep the amount of light entering the eye at a constant level at which the eye functions best. A cat's pupil can dilate quite significantly.

The combined effect of these three factors is that, in very poor lighting conditions, a cat receives significantly more visual information compared to a human. In fact, a cat can distinguish objects and other animals in less than 20 percent of the light required by the human eye.

SOME experts agree that a cat distinguishes three colors, others six.

Most researchers agree that it distinguishes between red, green and blue. So the cat sees a color image, although not as bright and contrasting as a person.

It is believed that she sees objects best at a distance of 2 to 6 meters (the optimal zone for catching mice?), but she prefers not to notice stationary objects.

In the end, a dead mouse is not as interesting as a living one, and besides, it loses a lot from a gastronomic point of view.

Cats' vision is more developed than other senses and is adapted mainly for night hunting.

Obviously, this explains the weakness of color vision and the amazing ability to use every glimpse of light.

In absolute darkness, not a single animal can see, not even a cat.

The cat's eye is capable of extracting light from darkness. How he does it?

First, by dilating the pupil as much as possible.

Secondly, using secondary reflection of light. Light-sensitive cells are located in the retina of the eye. Behind the retina, a cat has a special formation, a shiny triangular plate (the “mirror layer”), the cells of which reflect a weak ray of light onto the sensitive cells of the retina, that is, they work as a “light amplifier”.

Therefore, the cat's eye not only sees well, but also glows, “burns” in the dark. In addition, in all nocturnal animals, vision and hearing interact so closely that researchers joke: either a cat sees with its ears, or hears with its eyes?

Brain power was undoubtedly a major factor in the evolution of the cat family. The reason why one branch of this paleofelid family, the relic cats, went extinct about seven million years ago was very likely due to the increase in size and complexity of the brains of the modern cats that replaced them, the neophelides.

Apparently, the cat's brain has not undergone much change in the last ten million years. In other words, the brain of a lion is not very different from the brain of a house cat.

Of course, the lion's brain is many times larger than the cat's brain, but does this make the lion smarter than the cat? Not at all necessary, since a large body is covered with a large piece of skin with a large number of tactile receptors, and a huge mass of muscles requires a corresponding number of nerves to control these muscles.

The degree to which the brain of each animal species differs from the calculated standard is called the "intelligence quotient", IQ.

Much of the cat's brain controls their gymnastic, if not ballet, abilities.

Many cats amaze us with their cunning and ingenuity. And sometimes they are driven into despair by their inability to understand the simplest things.

How often do we have to exclaim: “Oh, you stupid cat!” And at the same time, we are proud of our murka’s intelligence. This happens because we try on the concept of intelligence on ourselves. In some respects, cats are, of course, dumber than people, but they can do many things that people cannot. Take, for example, an animal that is lost or abandoned by its owner and thus deprived of shelter and food. Many of these animals immediately adapt to the circumstances, obtaining food for themselves by hunting and begging, quickly find a dry and warm place to sleep and live such a semi-wild life until, if they are lucky, they find themselves a new home. Will we be able to adapt just as quickly by becoming “homeless”?

So why do cats think differently than we do? Scientists seem to have abandoned the old-fashioned idea that all living creatures on earth can be ranked from the stupidest to the smartest. All species of animals have evolved to live in a certain way in a certain place on the planet, and today there is no other creature that would do it better when put in someone else's place. If this happens and lower animals are replaced by higher ones, then the former most likely die out. In this sense, all species have the same dignity, and one species cannot be considered superior simply because its intelligence is closer to that of humans.

The surface of a cat's tongue is covered with many keratinized projections called capillary papillae.

They are directed backwards, that is, towards the larynx. It is these papillae that give the cat’s tongue its characteristic roughness. Thanks to them, the tongue can be used as a kind of file, which removes meat from the bones of prey, and, in addition, they play an important role in the cat’s toilet: with their help, the animal combs out lost hair.

The presence of papillae can also explain the tendency of cats to swallow needles. A playing cat may be attracted to a thread attached to a needle, and when the cat begins to play with the thread, it soon discovers that it does not separate from the tongue. The thread cannot be pulled out of the mouth, since the papillae are directed backwards. Due to swallowing movements, the thread gradually moves further and further into the mouth along with the needle attached to it.

There comes a time when you can get rid of a thread and a needle only by swallowing them. The needle can penetrate the wall of the throat or travel further into the digestive tract, but usually the needle is swallowed with the blunt end first. Very often everything goes well, and the needle passes through the digestive tract without causing any complications. This behavior also explains the tendency of some cats to swallow other objects, such as shoelaces and Christmas tree tinsel. This is how scientists explain this phenomenon, in any case.

However, the cat is a wise animal. Perhaps she simply foresaw the current feeding situation and the fact that our food supply would soon be limited to threads, needles, tinsel and shoelaces.

A wild cat has four types of hair: lower (undercoat), guard hairs, guard hairs and tactile hairs.

There can be up to two hundred hairs on every square millimeter of skin, and as a result, the cat has become the owner of a luxurious fur coat. The lower coat is the hair that is closest to the surface of the skin, and its main purpose is to keep the animal warm and maintain a uniform body temperature.

This is the shortest, thinnest and softest hair. Their diameter is approximately the same throughout their entire length, they are very wavy, and when examined under a magnifying glass, they give the impression of being curled or well-groomed. It is these short and wavy hairs that give the undercoat its excellent insulating properties. The guard hairs form the so-called medium coat.

They are intermediate between the soft undercoat and the protective coat of the top of a cat's fur. Their purpose is part isolation, part protection.

Tactile hairs are large and coarse hairs that act as organs of touch.

These special tactile hairs form a mustache on the upper lip; in addition, they are present on the cheeks and chin, around the eyes and on the ankles of the front legs. Compared to other types of hair, these hairs are very sparse, but play a significant role when the cat moves in poor light or hunts.

Among all three types of coats, the hairs of the undercoat are the most numerous.

For every thousand hairs of the lower coat, there are about three hundred guard hairs and about twenty guard hairs.

But these proportions vary greatly depending on the breed of cat, especially if we are talking about purebred animals. This is because they were carefully selected according to wool criteria, which in each case had special requirements. Some breeds have fine hair, some have short and coarse or long and fluffy hair. The differences are due to the predominance of certain types of wool and, accordingly, hair.

Thus, selective breeding has played a cruel joke on the natural fur of cats, producing types of this animal that would never survive in the wild.

However, fortunately for these purebred animals, there are usually always enough human slaves at their disposal to cater to their every whim, to look after them and cherish them, but, undoubtedly, if they were left to their own devices, the inevitable vagrancy would be the best option for such animals, and so inevitable would change be.

They would suffer from the climatic absurdities of our planet, but if they managed to survive and enter into mixed marriages, then after a few generations their descendants would return to the “wild” version of the coat.

A few words about this amazing cat feature. A cat spends a surprising amount of time sleeping. Her special anatomical and physiological structure shows that her body is adapted to act in a sudden impulse. It is not endurance and endurance that a predator requires, but hard work in a short period of time and over a short distance. Accordingly, cats get great pleasure from rest and respite.

The love for comfort - a warm place on the windowsill, under a table lamp on the desk or a favorite pillow - is an important feature of their lifestyle.

In general, a cat sleeps sixteen hours a day, sometimes for only a few minutes, the so-called “nap”.

Why our murka sleeps longer than other mammals is unclear.

Whether a cat is sleeping or awake, it continuously receives information from the world around it. In one scientific experiment, a cat was placed in such a way that it did not receive any signals from the outside, and an encephalogram of brain function was taken.

At the same time, the stages of deep and shallow sleep were recorded - 30% and 70%, respectively.

These phases alternate: you can follow the external manifestations of this state: movements of the paws and claws, twitching of the whiskers, movement of the ears, in some cases the animal makes different sounds in its sleep.

It is curious that the cat's brain, while in deep sleep, is just as active as in moments of wakefulness, and is constantly on alert to perceive the danger signal that is sent through the sensory apparatus. So don’t try to pull a sleeping cat’s tail with impunity, thinking that you will be able to escape from retribution: she will wake up instantly.

The cat yawns often and for a long time before falling asleep and after waking up. Then she diligently stretches and, keeping her paws close to each other, arches her back. At this time, the tail hangs sluggishly down, the head is lowered. Then she shakes all the members one by one, usually starting with the first step with her front paws. Often after this, it stretches out to its full length to sharpen its claws on a tree, a wall or furniture in the house. But this is a topic for another discussion.

Although we have given priority to the sense of smell, and deservedly so, let us not forget that our pets have excellent hearing. Any cat owner can confirm this by observing how his four-legged friend rushes to the door only when one of the family members knocks and shows no interest if it is a stranger. At the same time, your family will confirm how your pet cat recognizes your own steps from afar.

First of all, we note that the organ of hearing is very complex and is divided into three sections - the outer, middle and inner ear, and in addition there is also a central section located in the brain.

The outer ear is the most noticeable and well-known part to everyone, since it constantly catches our eye and the cat often uses it, at least the shell, which we simply call the ear. The shell is a high fold of skin, triangular in shape in most breeds, but in some breeds its shape is different.

More than a dozen muscles control the movements of the auricle, so it can change its shape, and most importantly, its position relative to the head: bend, press, turn almost 180."

At the base of the shell, in the middle, there is a small hole leading into a narrow canal, the auditory canal, which ends in a dead end covered by the thinnest eardrum. The middle ear begins here, but we will return to this section later, and now let’s talk directly about the auricle.

It is significant that many blood vessels pass through it and that on the inside its surface is filled with long, sparsely growing hair, and on the outside the hair is short, but grows very densely.

The shells are constantly in motion, while the right and left ones can move independently of one another. These features of the shell indicate its functions. It would be wrong to think that they are associated only with hearing.

For nature, this is too wasteful and wherever it can, it loads the same organ with several tasks at once. For example, a cat's ears give off excess heat and, therefore, are involved in thermoregulation. Remember how your cat, covered with thick and warm fur, suffers in the summer. The shell is one of the few places on her body through which excess heat is expelled.

The ears perform signaling functions, demonstrating to other animals and the owner the cat's emotions and intentions. Thus, ears pinned and turned back mean a declaration of war; pinned down readiness to fight; turned back warning; forward-directed and taut alertness; facing forward - curiosity.

In short, in communication, the ears play the same role as, for example, the tail.

Well, what about the hairs growing inside the shell?

They are also useful, as they protect the ear canal and membrane from debris and insects. Cats suffer from this no less than people.

Nature has made sure that a lattice of hard hairs appears in the path of insects, protecting the ear canal.

Thus, hairs are related to hearing.

But still indirect, but direct use of the shell as a sound-collecting funnel, amplifying weak, but very important sounds for the cat. First of all, the rustling of mice and other rodents that the cat feeds on. Next are the steps of other cats, among whom there may be both friends and enemies.

Finally, the steps of her owner, the steps of dogs, and in nature, foxes or wolves.

In humans, the cochlea-spiral is twisted 2.75 turns, and in a cat it is 3. The place where the receiving cells and numerous auxiliary structures are located is specially called the organ of Corti.

There are about 13,000 receptive cells in a cat's ear, slightly less than in humans. At its upper part, the receptive cell is covered with sensitive projections - “hairs” (not to be confused with the hairs of the auricle!).

Sounds are analyzed by the brain comprehensively and completely.

In the end, the brain decides “what to do” and issues appropriate commands to the motor centers. The circle closes, allowing the cat to act expediently in the current situation: in some cases to run away, in others to approach, in others to hide, etc.

The cat range includes the voices of small rodents, especially their young. Our ear does not perceive these ranges. Therefore, the assumption that cats and mice communicate in their own “language”, inaccessible to our perception, is correct.

From this point of view, it is also interesting that a cat’s hearing, unlike ours, is tuned to higher sounds.

This tuning can be seen already at the level of external hearing, which in cats amplifies sound in the range of 1.9-3.8 kHz better than ours, but especially significantly in the range of 4-6 kHz and above.

A cat’s ability to localize and find a sound source in space is high and far exceeds human capabilities. A cat is capable of catching a mouse running past with its eyes closed, focusing only on rustling and squeaking, while our ears are not able to determine the location of the sound source with such accuracy.

And finally, cat hearing has one more feature: it is able to pick up sounds coming along the substrate, transmitting them with its paws further to the receptors and brain (“seismic hearing”).

A cat sitting on a thick branch perceives the vibrations of the wood, walking along the ground vibrations of the soil. This allows cats to predict the weather in advance by sensing the infrasonic front that precedes its change. Because of this, cats are considered reliable weather predictors.

lashes its tail - gets angry or hunts ("better don't come near")

tail with a trumpet - greeting, pleasure (“I’m so glad!”)

tail frozen at the bottom - disgust, disappointment (“what disgusting”)

ears are pressed to the head, the tail is making circles - irritation

moves the tip of the tail - interest ("what's so interesting here?")

the tail raised vertically has a relaxed tip - joyful excitement (“hurray!”)

quickly licks his front paw - worried, indecisive (“how can this be?”)

looked around and carefully licked itself - complete or feigned (during play or hunting) calmness (“I’m just washing my face here”)

quickly licks nose and lips - confused (we'd scratch our heads)

stretches out his paw to your face - asks for attention and affection (“well, do you still love me a little?”)

tramples with its paws - loves you very much (like a mother), wants to please you (“I love you so much!”)

ears vertical - curiosity

ears flat to the sides - hiding, flirting (“mind you, you can’t see me”)

hides his head in some corner in the game - “mind me, I’m hiding”

ears back, eyes big - warning (“I won’t tolerate it”)

ears back, eyes squinting - impatience, request (“well, hurry up, I really want to”)

squints - demonstrates peacefulness and calm (“everything is fine”)

large eyes and pupils - peers into the darkness, is afraid, angry or plays

stared at you - a challenge (usually a game of catch-up)

a third eyelid appears - the cat is sick or wants to sleep

mustache down - preoccupied, sad or sick

the cat runs away from you, pulling his head into his shoulders, on long legs, he knows that he has done a mischief (“I’d better go”)

the cat rolls on the floor - demonstrates its attractiveness

the cat rolls on the floor, walks on half-bent legs, moves its tail, calls - signs of estrus

lies on its back with a thoughtful look - ventilating, resting (this funny position is typical for Siberians and other cats that have more warm downy hair on their stomachs than on their backs)

sits with his paws tucked, his tail turned - watching, relaxed, waiting

dances, lifting his front paws off the ground and putting them back - a greeting to someone loved and long-awaited

turns its back to the owner's face and raises its tail - a common greeting gesture between well-known cats, a sign of trust and respect. The dominant cat sniffs first.

Compared to us, cats have a highly developed sense of smell.

In relation to the total volume of the brain, the part of it that is responsible for smell is much larger in cats than in humans. This allows the cat to very easily distinguish between individual people, or to determine by the smell of marks that the cat itself has already been to this particular place before.

Males also recognize a cat who is currently in heat by smell, which allows them the much-desired mating: they identify a partner by the smell of special attracting substances that are present in the female’s urine.

(Research conducted by a journalist from Cat Fancy magazine)

It is not at all surprising that potential suicides prefer to jump from heights.

This is probably the most reliable way.

If you take sleeping pills, you may feel sick; when you press the trigger, your hand may tremble; if you jump from a ledge, nothing can save you.

In this respect, cats and people present a striking contrast. Cats are completely indifferent to heights, which frighten most people. Cats often survive falls that would kill any of us. It's not that they rarely fall.

Cats have a magnificent internal "gyroscope" located in their inner ear. If a cat falls with its back down, it quickly orients itself in space and, bending, turns in the air with its paws down, without flying even one and a half meters. As a result, the blow is distributed over four paws rather than two.

Another advantage of a cat, besides its light weight, is that it can bend its limbs to distribute the force of an impact across the joints and muscles.

If we are deprived of a cat's gyroscope, then it would be useful to learn from cats how to bend their legs, thereby ensuring greater safety when falling.

However, this advantage of cats does not explain the most surprising fact that their chances of survival increase when falling from a height greater than the 7th floor.

Let us recall that bodies falling in the earth's atmosphere are accelerated to a certain maximum speed, the value of which depends on air resistance (proportional to the area of ​​the body) and weight.

The weight, of course, cannot change, but the area exposed to the air flow can. Parachutists, spreading their arms and legs to the sides, increase the area and reduce the speed.

It is likely that cats can do the same thing as trained skydivers.

Before reaching maximum speed, they instinctively extend their limbs, which can therefore break upon impact.

Once maximum speed is reached, cats can relax by spreading their legs horizontally, like a flying squirrel.

At the same time, air resistance increases, the speed and impact force decreases, which is also distributed over the entire area of ​​the body (and not just four paws). So, we brought in physics, astronomy and psychology for analysis.

All that remains is to apply knowledge from the field of evolutionary biology. It is likely that cats' unique abilities evolved through natural selection. Most species of the cat family and only a few species of dogs climb trees.

For millions of years, cats jumped onto prey from trees and simply fell from there. All those cats that had a bad gyroscope, stiff limbs, and those that did not learn to assume the squirrel pose broke their paws and ended up in the dustbin of evolution. Only the best "parachutists" survived.

So cats have their evolutionary history to thank for their nine lives.

Cats are popular everywhere. According to the latest estimates, there are about 45 million in the USA, 100 million in Brazil, 6 million in Germany, 12 million in the UK.

Nobody knows how many cats there are in our country. Until very recently, or rather until the end of the 19th century, a cat simply lived next to a person, caught mice, and basked in the sun. And only at the beginning of the twentieth century it became an object of breeding: cat breeds were determined that differed from each other in the size and dimensions of the body, head lines, length and structure of fur, color, eye color, ear set, tail length, etc.

There are a number of domestic cat breeds and color varieties of these breeds. Color variations distinguish cats of the same breed, differing from each other only in color and completely identical in all other indicators of the exterior.

The variety of cat breeds is great. Some of them are popular and numerous, some are rare, some are the rarest. Of those cats that are considered truly purebred, purebred, the most common ones in our country are Persian, Siamese and Oriental. There are also several cats of rare breeds and individuals of rare colors.

New breeds are developed and recognized every year, so it is impossible to create a complete list of breeds. In total, about 400 breeds and colors of cats are now registered in the world. They are mainly divided into the following large groups:

longhaired, semi-longhaired, shorthaired, Siamese and Oriental.

Science puts the phenomena of the cat tribe on a par with the mysteries of UFOs

Science can often explain the incredible abilities of representatives of the animal world, since the facts clearly contradict common sense. One thing is clear: among four-legged psychics, ordinary pet cats are in the lead.

Researchers are convinced that cats have the greatest degree of extra-sensory perception (ESP), popularly called the “third eye.”

Cats have lived alongside people for more than ten thousand years. In the ancient world they were worshiped as sacred animals, messengers of the gods.

In the Middle Ages, cats were feared, they were chased, drowned, burned at the stake, called the incarnation of the devil, werewolves, and witches.

The Slavs were more loyal to cats, but in many Ukrainian villages they still believe that a cat that has survived its 13th birthday should be gotten rid of, because from now on it becomes more cunning and smarter than its owner, embodying some kind of devilish power.

Compassionate peasants often took the furry veteran to the forest, away from home. Only in the 20th century did scientific minds become seriously interested in the mystery of cats and... finally reached a dead end.

Back in the 30s, a pioneer in the study of HFV, Dr. Joseph Wenk Rhine founded the world's first parapsychology laboratory at Duke University (California).

As a result of long-term research, the scientist recognized that cats have paranomal abilities such as precognition and telepathy. Simply put, they are able to sense the approach of danger in advance and, at long distances, learn about troubles or the death of their owner.

For more than half a century, all these feline “psi” have been widely studied in Europe, America and the former USSR.

The ability of cats to sense the approach of danger has not surprised anyone for a long time; moreover, their capabilities are actively used by people. Cats are taken on ships and submarines.

For example, in the towns and villages on the slopes of Vesuvius on the eastern shore of the Bay of Naples, there is not a household without cats. Over many centuries, life has taught people whose houses are built on the slopes of an active volcano to rely on the instincts of their furry pets more than on the predictions of scientists. Sensing that the volcano will soon come to life, the cats run far away from danger.

The hosts are not far behind them. During the Second World War, where death could fall from the sky at any moment, cats often saved their owners.

Similar cases were recorded in all warring countries. While acoustic systems and experienced “listeners” probed the skies for signs of an impending bombing, city residents monitored the behavior of their muroks, discovering that a more reliable and sensitive system for early detection of danger lay curled up by the fireplace.

At the slightest sign of anxiety in the cats, the owners quickly gathered and ran to the bomb shelters, taking their four-legged sentry with them.

This ability of cats turned out to be so valuable during the war that a special medal was established in Europe with the words engraved on it: “We, too, serve our homeland.” The medal was awarded to the cats that saved the greatest number of human lives.

Obviously, cats can sense danger and anticipate events, be it a natural disaster, a change in weather, or simply the arrival of a guest. And although there are many fictions among cat stories and often they cannot be a reliable basis for a convincing scientific theory, scientists can explain some of the abilities of the “smaller brothers”.

The famous cat researcher, German biochemist Helmut Tribuch explains the ability of cats to foresight by the fact that they can detect positively charged ions and atoms in the atmosphere, are able to detect very weak shaking of the soil, changes in the surrounding magnetic field and sounds that lie outside the range of perception of human hearing.

On top of that, cats have a unique sensory organ, the Jacobson's organ.

This “third eye” is located at the base of their mouth. To use it, the animal must stop all actions and draw in air. Often, cat owners can observe this process: the pet stands with its mouth slightly open and seems to be listening to something.

But even this does not explain the other incredible abilities of the representatives of the cat tribe, such as telepathy. It happened that cats from thousands of kilometers learned about the illness or death of the owner, worried, and rushed from corner to corner.

Scientist Bill Shul in his book “The Psychic Abilities of Animals” describes a mysterious incident that he himself witnessed. Bill's friend, a policeman named Martin, had a cat named Fidget.

One day Martin went to another city, and on the way he was hit by a car. The deceased had no family and his friend, going to the funeral, believed that he would be the only guest. But he was mistaken: the cat Fidget also came to say his last goodbye to his master.

As the cemetery attendant said, the cat had been sitting at the prepared grave since the morning, knowing who it was intended for. Many stories are told about healing cats, avenger cats, seer cats and even ghost cats. Moreover, the latter are found not only in England, the homeland of ghosts.

Although the most famous ghost cat comes from there. This creature "...disappeared slowly, starting with the tip of its tail and ending with the smile that remained when the cat himself was no longer there."

This is the same Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

Lewis Carroll, aka Charles Dodgson, is from Daresbury in Cheshire, near Congleton. From there, where at the beginning of the 20th century the ghost of a large white cat allegedly lived on the ruins of an ancient abbey. During his lifetime he was the favorite of Mrs. Winge, the keeper of the abbey. One day the cat did not return home, and soon the woman heard a familiar scratching at the door: the cat was sitting on the threshold, but refused to enter the house, and a moment later disappeared, as if it had melted into thin air.

The ghost of the Congleton Cat has been seen by hundreds of people for 50 years; tourists specially went to the abbey for this. Such a mysterious story could easily have captured the imagination of a modest Oxford mathematician, who made the Congleton ghost the prototype of the smiling Cheshire cat. By the way, Lewis Carroll had such a keen interest in the paranomous that in 1882 he even joined the Society of Psychical Researchers.

These cases, like many others, are still impossible to verify and explain, but also to refute.

Scientists believe that cats are a link between humans and an area that is beyond ordinary human perception, the existence of which we can only guess. And therefore their abilities remain one of the greatest mysteries of our century.