Here are some very fascinating facts and trivia which might interest you about my favourite animal - cats. Cats are more than just your average household pet - they're amazing creatures, and here you'll find out just some of the reasons why...
1) The Latin classification for a pet cat is felis domesticus.
2) The cat's earliest ancestor is the Miacid, a strange five-toed weasel-like creature which lived during the Paleolithic era of prehistory. It lived on a diet of insects, fish and birds.
3) Of all the kinds of cat in the world, the cheetah is the only one that cannot retract its claws.
4) When a cat is frightened, it sweats through its feet.
5) All white bengal tigers of Rewa are descended from Mohan, who died aged 19, leaving 114 descendants with white fur and ice-blue eyes.
6) The black tuft on a lion's tail conceals a spur/claw.
7) Scarlett, a cat in New York, ran into her burning home 5 times to save all her kittens.
8) The thought that cats have nine lives comes from the Medieval belief that witches could only change into a cat nine times.
9) The Japanese loved cats for keeping mice out of their stores of precious silkworm. At Gokoku-ji temple in Tokyo the lucky "maneki neko" cat statues raise their paws for good luck.
10) On the death of a cat, the Ancient Egyptians would shave off their eyebrows and cover their faces with ash. In Ancient Egypt, cats were sacred animals, their patron goddess being Bast (or Bastet.)
11) The snow leopard, clouded leopard and black leopard (panther) are not leopards, but in fact entirely another species of big cat.
12) Although the lion is the king of the jungle, the tiger is bigger and more powerful.
13) The U.S. President Roosevelt's cat Slippers always attended the Whitehouse dinners.
14) On the other side of the Atlantic, the British prime minister during World War II, Winston Churchill, said that his cat, Nelson, "acts like a hot water-bottle and saves fuel, power and money!"
15) Cats have about 40 more bones than us, owing to their agility and flexibility.
16) One of the domestic cat's closest wild relatives is the manul. It can hoot like an owl and yelp like a dog.
17) One good turn deserves another... and that's quite a true fact in the legend of Androcles. Androcles helped a wild lion by removing a thorn from its paw. Later, he was captured by Romans and thrown to the lions. But one of the lions saved him. It was the one he had helped before.
18) Cats are supposed to have twelve whiskers on each side.
19) Most of the hunting in a pride is done by the lionesses. Then the male lions eat most of the food! The cubs and lionesses get whatever is left.
20) The Jacobson's organ in the mouth of a male cat is a taste-smell organ. It tells if there are any cats in heat nearby. The cat lifts his head and curls back his upper lip. This draws in the scented air into the roof of his mouth, where the organ can detect the scent to help the cat follow it. This is called flehming.
21) Some cats are born with five toes.
22) The Turkish Van is the only domestic cat that generally enjoys swimming.
23) The puma, or mountain lion, is not only a sight in the Western U.S., but also in the Amazon rainforests.
24) In traditional Japanese lore, cats are supposed to turn into "super-spirits" when they die.
25) Kaspar the cat is made out of wood, and he is commissioned to sit at the table in the Savoy Hotel, London, whenever there are thirteen guests. This began to happen after the first guest of a party of thirteen to leave the hotel was killed soon after. Kaspar is treated like any other guest. He wears a napkin bib at dinner, and is served the entire meal, including a drink.
26) A cat uses its whiskers to test whether or not they are too wide to fit through a space. Their whiskers grow long enough to measure up with their body width so they know it's always right!
27) The whiskers on the top of the cat's head tells her whether or not she is small enough in height to fit through the gap. Her ears reach the same height as her whiskers do!
28) Cats have often been known to act as surrogate mothers to small animals other than their own species, such as otters, squirrels and puppies.
29) A popular British pub name is "The Cat and Fiddle", carelessly borrowed from "Le Chat Fidele", the French phrase meaning "The Faithful Cat".
30) The composer Champfleury claimed to hear 63 separate notes in a cat's call.
31) The tiglon is a hybrid of a lion and a tiger that is bred in captivity.
32) White cats are often born deaf.
33) It was once thought that cat excrement was medically proven to combat baldness.
34) A cat called Simon was given the Dickin Medal in 1949 for protecting food supplies on the HMS Amethyst.
35) Towzer died at age 24 with the world record for catching the most vermin - he caught 28,899 rats throughout his life while at the Glen Turret distillery in Scotland.
36) The herb rue is repulsive to cats, and was often tied under the wings of chicks on old English farms to deter wandering pesky kitties from nibbling on the chickens' young!
37) The word "puss" is said to be derived from the alternative name, Pasht, for the feline Egyptian goddess of life, Bast (or Bastet.)
38) Florence Nightingale looked after wounded soldiers in the Crimean war, but also took in more than sixty cats!
39) Colette said that "our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet".
40) Sir Isaac Newton is thought to have invented the cat-flap.
41) The most popular male cat's name (according to 1800PetMeds.com) is Max, and the most popular name for a female cat is Sassy.
42) Most cats do not have eyelashes.
43) The approximate top speed of the average household kitty can be up to 31mph.
44) The domestic cat is the only species capable of holding its tail perfectly erect.
45) The life expectancy of the domestic cat has increased to twice as much as in 1930 - from 8 to 16 years.
46) Catnip is non-addictive and 20% of cats do not have the gene required for the plant to affect them, making them "high".
47) It has been scientifically proven that stroking a cat can lower one's blood pressure.
48) Generally, cats respond better to the call of a woman that to that of a man, most likely because a woman's voice has a higher pitch.
49) Only one substance produced by a cat causes allergy - not fur, saliva or urine, but "sebum", a fatty secretion from the sebaceous glands. If a person is allergic to cats, some cats will not cause an allergic reaction, while some don't. Also, male cats are thought to produce more sebum than females, thus making it more likely to invoke an allergic reaction.
50) Cats can fit through any gap up to the size of their head because they have no collarbone in their 230-bone skeletons (24 more bones than in the human skeleton).