Cat senses are adaptations that allow cats to be highly efficient predators. Cats have acute sight, hearing and smell, and their sense of touch is enhanced by long whiskers that protrude from their heads and bodies. These senses allow cats to hunt effectively in dim light or at night. For other uses, see Adaptation (disambiguation). ... Binomial name Felis catus Linnaeus, 1758 Synonyms Felis lybica invalid junior synonym The cat (or domestic cat, house cat) is a small carnivorous mammal. ... This snapping turtle is trying to make a meal of a Canada goose, but the goose is too wary. ...

Sight

The tapetum lucidum reflecting green in the pupils of a cat.

Testing indicates that a cat's vision is superior at night in comparison to humans, and inferior in daylight. Cats, like dogs and many other animals, have a tapetum lucidum, which is a reflective layer behind the retina that reflects light that passes through the retina back into the eye.^[1] While this enhances the ability to see in low light, it appears to reduce net visual acuity, thus detracting when light is abundant. In very bright light, the slit-like iris closes very narrowly over the eye, reducing the amount of light on the sensitive retina, and improving depth of field. The tapetum and other mechanisms give the cat a minimum light detection threshold up to seven times lower than that of humans. Variation in color of cats' eyes in flash photographs is largely due to the reflection of the flash by the tapetum. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (652x701, 239 KB) Beschreibung Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Cat Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (652x701, 239 KB) Beschreibung Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Cat Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Night-vision is seeing in the dark. ... Tapetum lucidum in a calf eye, with the retina hanging down. ... Human eye cross-sectional view. ... Traditional Snellen chart used for visual acuity testing. ... In anatomy, the iris (plural irises or irides) is the most visible part of the eye of vertebrates, including humans. ... Human eye cross-sectional view. ... In optics, particularly film and photography, the depth of field (DOF) is the distance in front of and beyond the subject that appears to be in focus. ... Tapetum lucidum in a calf eye, with the retina hanging down. ...

A closeup of a cat's eye, showing green iris and dilated pupil.

Average cats have a visual field of view estimated at 200°, versus 180° in humans, with a binocular field (overlap in the images from each eye) narrower than that of humans. As with most predators, their eyes face forward, affording depth perception at the expense of field of view. Field of view is largely dependent upon the placement of the eyes, but may also be related to the eye's construction. Instead of the fovea which gives humans sharp central vision, cats have a central band known as the visual streak.^[2] Cats can see some colors, and can tell the difference between red, blue and yellow lights, as well as between red and green lights.^[3] Download high resolution version (1024x1312, 263 KB)A cat eye Photographer: jefras Source: Stock. ... Download high resolution version (1024x1312, 263 KB)A cat eye Photographer: jefras Source: Stock. ... The field of view is the part of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. ... Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions. ... The fovea, a part of the eye, is a spot located in the center of the macula. ... Color is an important part of the visual arts. ...

A white cat with heterochromatic eyes.

Cats have a third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, which is a thin cover that closes from the side and appears when the cat's eyelid opens. This membrane partially closes if the cat is sick; although in a sleepy, content cat this membrane is often visible. If a cat chronically shows the third eyelid, it should be taken to a veterinarian for evaluation. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (896x990, 79 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Cat Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (896x990, 79 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Cat Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create... For the tightly packed form of DNA, see Heterochromatin. ... Many species of land animals have a nictitating membrane, which can move across the eyeball to give the sensitive eye structures additional protection in particular circumstances. ... Look up veterinarian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Unlike humans, cats do not need to blink their eyes on a regular basis to keep their eyes lubricated (with tears). Unblinking eyes are probably an advantage when hunting. Cats will, however, "squint" their eyes, usually as a form of communication. Cat owners can often entice their pets to squint or even fully close their eyes just by talking to them in a soothing or pleasing manner. Many cats will also squint in response to seeing their owners squint. When a cat does blink, it is a slower blink than in humans, so it will typically blink one eye at a time so it can still see from the other eye. When the cat is looking at someone while doing this, it gives the impression that the cat is winking at them. Example of a blinking eye (slow-motion) Blinking is the rapid closing and opening of the eyelid. ... The tear system. ... An individual with an small extropic strabismus Strabismus (sometimes called crossed or wandering eye) is a disorder of the eyes involving a lack of coordination between the muscles of the eyes. ...

Cats have a wide variation in eye color, the most typical colors being golden, green and orange. Blue eyes are usually associated with the Siamese breed, but they are also found in white cats and kittens. It is a common misconception that all white cats with blue eyes are deaf. This is not true, as there are many blue-eyed cats with perfect hearing. However, white cats with blue eyes do have slightly higher incidences of genetic deafness than white cats of other eye colors.^[4] White cats having one blue and one other-colored eye are called "odd-eyed" and may be deaf on the same side as the blue eye.^[5] This is the result of the yellow iris pigmentation rising to the surface of only one eye, as blue eyes are normal at birth before the adult pigmentation has had a chance to express itself in the eye(s). An odd-eyed white cat An odd-eyed cat is a cat with one blue eye and one green, orange or yellow eye. ...

Hearing

Humans and cats have a similar range of hearing on the low end of the scale, but cats can hear much higher-pitched sounds, up to 70 kHz, which is 1.6 octaves above the range of a human, and even 1 octave above the range of a dog.^[6] When listening for something, a cat's ears will swivel in that direction; a cat's ear flaps (pinnae) can independently point backwards as well as forwards and sideways to pinpoint the source of the sound. Cats can judge within three inches (7.5 cm) the location of a sound being made one yard (approximately 91 cm) away—this can be useful for localizing prey, etc. This article is about the SI unit of frequency. ... This article is about audible acoustic waves. ...

Smell

A cat using its senses for exploration

A domestic cat's sense of smell is about fourteen times as strong as a human's.^[7] Cats have twice as many smell-sensitive cells in their noses as people do, which means they can smell things we are not even aware of. Cats also have a scent organ in the roof of their mouths called the vomeronasal, or Jacobson's organ. When a cat wrinkles its muzzle, lowers its chin, and lets its tongue hang a bit, it is opening the passage to the vomeronasal. This is called gaping, "sneering", or "flehming". Gaping is the equivalent of the Flehmen response in other animals, such as dogs, horses and big cats. Image File history File links Kot_Leni. ... Image File history File links Kot_Leni. ... The vomeronasal organ (VNO) or Jacobsons organ is an auxiliary olfactory sense organ in some tetrapods. ... A mare exhibits the flehmen response by curling back her upper lip The flehmen response, also called the flehmen position, flehmen reaction, flehming, or flehmening (from German flehmen (of animals) meaning to curl the upper lip), is a particular type of curling of the upper lip in ungulates, felids, and... Trinomial name Canis lupus familiaris The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a domestic subspecies of the wolf, a mammal of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. ... Who ever deleted my page is a prat and i wil hunt them down on lucy and shout at them loudly! RAAAAARRR! connie sansom ... For people nicknamed The Big Cat, see The Big Cat. ...

Touch

Whiskers on the face of a tuxedo cat.

A cat has about twenty-four movable vibrissae ("whiskers"), in four rows on each upper lip on each side of its nose (some cats may have more), in addition to a few on each cheek, tufts over the eyes, bristles on the chin, the cat's inner "wrists", and at the back of the legs.^[8] The Sphynx (a nearly hairless breed) may have full length, short, or no whiskers at all. Chelsea Clintons cat, Socks, lived in the White House from 1993 to 2001. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... See also Sphinx (disambiguation) See also Peterbald Sphynx The Sphynx (aka Canadian Hairless) is a rare breed of cat. ...

Vibrissae aid navigation and sensation. The upper two rows of whiskers can move independently from the lower two rows for even more precise measuring. Whiskers are more than twice as thick as ordinary hairs, and their roots are set three times deeper than hairs in a cat's tissue. Richly supplied with nerve endings at their base, whiskers give cats extraordinarily detailed information about air movements, air pressure and anything they touch. Vibrissae possess exquisite sensitivity to vibrations in air currents. As air swirls and eddies around objects, whiskers vibrate too. Whiskers may detect very small shifts in air currents, enabling a cat to know it is near obstructions without actually seeing them. Cats use messages in these vibrations to sense the presence, size, and shape of obstacles without seeing or touching them.

Whiskers are also good hunting tools. The structure of the brain region which receives information from the vibrissae is similar to that found in the visual cortex, suggesting that the nature of the cat's perception through its whiskers is similar to that via its vision.^{[9][10][11][12]} Stop motion photography reveals that at the moment a cat's prey is so close to its mouth to be too near for accurate vision, its whiskers move so as to form a basket shape around its muzzle in order to precisely detect the prey's location.^[13][14] A cat whose whiskers have been damaged may bite the wrong part of a mouse it's attacking, indicating that signals from these delicate structures provide cats with vital information about the shape and activity of its prey — interestingly, whiskers also help cats detect scents. Brodmann area 17 (primary visual cortex) is shown in red in this image which also shows area 18 (orange) and 19 (yellow) The visual cortex refers to the primary visual cortex (also known as striate cortex or V1) and extrastriate visual cortical areas such as V2, V3, V4, and V5. ...

It is thought that a cat may choose to rely on the whiskers in dim light where fully dilating the pupils would reduce its ability to focus on close objects. The whiskers also spread out roughly as wide as the cat's body making it able to judge if it can fit through an opening.

Whiskers are also an indication of the cat's attitude. Whiskers point forward when the cat is inquisitive and friendly, and lie flat on the face when the cat is being defensive or aggressive.

Whiskers can also be a bother to a cat, especially when the cat tries to eat food out of a bowl. The end of the whiskers touching the side of the bowl transfer irritating sensations to its brain, making it hard for it to continue eating.

Taste

The cat family was shown in 2005 to lack the T1R2 protein, one of two required for function of the sweetness sensory receptor; a deletion in the relevant gene (Tas1r2) causes a shift in the genetic reading frame, leading to transcription stopping early and no detectable mRNA or protein produced.^[15] The other protein, T1R3, is present and identical to that of other animals, and the relevant taste buds are still present but inactive. Such a genetic marker found in the entire family and not other animals must be the result of a mutation in an early ancestor; as a deletion mutation it could not revert, and thus would be inherited by all descendants, as the evolutionary tree branched out. Most scientists now believe this is the root of the cat family's extremely specialized evolutionary niche as a hunter and carnivore. Their modified sense of taste would cause them to some degree to ignore plants, a large part of whose taste appeal derives from their high sugar content, in favor of a high-protein carnivorous diet, which would still stimulate their remaining taste receptors. “Feline” redirects here. ... A representation of the 3D structure of myoglobin showing coloured alpha helices. ... For other uses, see Sweetness (disambiguation). ... In a sensory system, a sensory receptor is a structure that recognizes a stimulus in the internal or external environment of an organism. ... Look up deletion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Gene (disambiguation). ... In biology, a reading frame is a contiguous and non-overlapping set of three-nucleotide codons in DNA or RNA. There are 3 possible reading frames in a strand. ... A micrograph of ongoing gene transcription of ribosomal RNA illustrating the growing primary transcripts. ... The interaction of mRNA in a eukaryote cell. ... Taste buds are small structures on the upper surface of the tongue, soft palate, and epiglottis that provide information about the taste of food being eaten. ... A genetic marker is a known DNA sequences (e. ... For linguistic mutation, see Apophony. ... A gene deletion, or deletion mutation is a genetic mutation in which a part of a chromosome or a sequence of DNA is missing. ... Shortcut: WP:RV Wikipedia:Editing FAQ>How to revert a page to an earlier version You may wish to revert an article to an earlier version, perhaps because it has been the target of vandalism or because material has been added or removed inappropriately. ... The evolutionary tree of living things is currently supposed to run something along the lines of that listed below. ... This article is about evolution in biology. ... Two lichens on a rock, in two different ecological niches In ecology, a niche; (pronounced nich, neesh or nish)[1] is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem[1]. The ecological niche; describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of...

References

1. ^ Braekevelt CR (1990). "Fine structure of the feline tapetum lucidum". Anat Histol Embryol 19 (2): 97–105. PMID 2240589.
2. ^ Hughes A (1975). "A quantitative analysis of the cat retinal ganglion cell topography". J. Comp. Neurol. 163 (1): 107–28. PMID 1159109.
3. ^ Schneider H, Beller FK (1977). "[A case of coumarin necrosis following cesarean section]" (in German). Med Welt 28 (9): 432–3. PMID 846383.
4. ^ Geigy CA, Heid S, Steffen F, Danielson K, Jaggy A, Gaillard C (2007). "Does a pleiotropic gene explain deafness and blue irises in white cats?". Vet. J. 173 (3): 548–53. PMID 16956778.
5. ^ White Cats, Eye Colours and Deafness. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
6. ^ Strain, G.M., How Well Do Dogs and Other Animals Hear?
7. ^ The Nose Knows. About.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-29.
8. ^ Cat's Whiskers
9. ^ Somatotopic projections of mystacial vibrissae on cerebral cortex of cats, Journal of Neurophysiology, Vol 40, Issue 5, pp. 997–1014, 1977.
10. ^ Properties of different functional types of neurones in the cat's rostral trigeminal nuclei responding to sinus hair stimulation, J Physiol. 1977 October; 272(1): 57–84
11. ^ Mystacial vibrissae representation within the trigeminal sensory nuclei of the cat, The Journal of Comparative Neurology Volume 253, Issue 1, Pages 121–133, 9 October 2004.
12. ^ Haight, J. R.: The general organization of somatotopic projections to SII cerebral neocortex in the cat. Brain Res. 44: 483–502 (1972).
13. ^ Cat Traits Floridaconservation.org
14. ^ Sunquist, M. & F. Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. Univ. Chicago Press.
15. ^ Li, Xia; Weihua Li, Hong Wang, Jie Cao, Kenji Maehashi, Liquan Huang, Alexander A. Bachmanov, Danielle R. Reed, Véronique Legrand-Defretin, Gary K. Beauchamp, Joseph G. Brand (July 2005). "Pseudogenization of a Sweet-Receptor Gene Accounts for Cats' Indifference toward Sugar". PLOS Genetics 1 (1). Public Library of Science. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0010003. Retrieved on 2006-11-08.