Aha, I found more cat facts on the internet!
- Every year, nearly four million cats are eaten in Asia.
- On average, cats spend 2/3 of every day sleeping. That means a nine-year-old cat has been awake for only three years of its life.
- When a cat chases its prey, it keeps its head level. Dogs and humans bob their heads up and down.
- The technical term for a cat’s hairball is a “bezoar”.
Female cats tend to be right pawed, while male cats are more often left pawed. Interestingly, while 90% of humans are right handed, the remaining 10% of lefties also tend to be male.- A cat can’t climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat’s paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down
- During the time of the Spanish Inquisition, Pope Innocent VIII condemned cats as evil and thousands of cats were burned. Unfortunately, the widespread killing of cats led to an explosion of the rat population, which exacerbated the effects of the Black Death.
- According to Hebrew legend, Noah prayed to God for help protecting all the food he stored on the ark from being eaten by rats. In reply, God made the lion sneeze, and a cat popped out.Mohammed loved cats and reportedly his favorite cat, Muezza, was a tabby. Legend says that tabby cats have an “M” for Mohammed on top of their heads because Mohammad would often rest his hand on the cat’s head.
- The most popular pedigreed cat is the Persian cat, followed by the Main Coon cat and the Siamese cat.
- Some Siamese cats appear cross-eyed because the nerves from the left side of the brain go to mostly the right eye and the nerves from the right side of the brain go mostly to the left eye. This causes some double vision, which the cat tries to correct by “crossing” its eyes.
- Researchers believe the word “tabby” comes from Attabiyah, a neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq. Tabbies got their name because their striped coats resembled the famous wavy patterns in the silk produced in this city.
- In the original Italian version of Cinderella, the benevolent fairy godmother figure was a cat.
- The world’s rarest coffee, Kopi Luwak, comes from Indonesia where a wildcat known as the luwak lives. The cat eats coffee berries and the coffee beans inside pass through the stomach. The beans are harvested from the cat’s dung heaps and then cleaned and roasted. Kopi Luwak sells for about $500 for a 450 g (1 lb) bag.
- In Japan, cats are thought to have the power to turn into super spirits when they die.
- The claws on the cat’s back paws aren’t as sharp as the claws on the front paws because the claws in the back don’t retract and, consequently, become worn.
Resource
Randomhistory.com
I am really starting to love that little zen guy.
BTW, you said “Some Siamese cats appear cross-eyed because the nerves from the left side of the brain go to mostly the right eye and the nerves from the right side of the brain go mostly to the left eye. ” I am relatively sure that is how the human brain is wired. The one side of the brain controls the opposite side of the body.
I can’t remember I had anything like that with biology classes years back. You sure?
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html check it out. A couple of paragraphs down.
Interesting!
Love all these facts. We’re working out how many years all our cats have been awake – makes us smile!
I’m curious with how many years you came up with.
Thank you Diana for sharing these facts. I like the “God made the lion sneeze, and a cat popped out” “fact”
Oh ya, i passed on the One Lovely Blog Award to you in an early post even though i saw that you already got it! 
Keep up the great work here, you certainly deserve this award more than once :} xoxo Poppy
That’s ok! Thank you so much for the award!
Awe, I do? Thank you!
How can you tell if your cat is a lefty or a righty? Is there a test? I’m totally jealous of sleeping 2/3 of a life away…how sad am I? Is the Luwak also known as the Civet? Because I thought it was civet cat’s poo that had the coffee beans in it… Could be something else I’m thinking of though.
I wish I could sleep most of the time! I love sleeping!
Hm, good question. Maybe trying to swing a string in front of his nose, and see which paw he uses to get it?
I should look this up haha!
Luwak coffee is also called, civet coffee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak
Thank you Diana. Tall person read these out to Barnaby but didn’t tell him about the gruesome facts.
Love this photo, but I didn’t care for the first fact!
Great information, now I know where the M on their head is coming from. They once told me they got the M becourse they are offsprings of an Egyptian Mau, I don’t know what is true, but I go for the Mohammed-story
The Black Death was over a hundred years before the Spanish Inquisition.
Oh really?
They eat cat, OMG, thats horrible…have you noticed how many facts keep on coming up for cats, its amazing how much we learn about them each day. Nice post.
In Asia they eat cat, in countries like China. It’s really sad. But so far I know, I thought it was forbidden to eat animals like dogs and cats.