Top 20 Craziest Cat Facts

We love cats here at Bivvy. Many of our team members are cat owners themselves! From their variety of personalities to their happiness found in a sunny nook, cats as a whole have many distinctive characteristics compared to their household pet counterparts. In honor of this, we’re sharing our 20 favorite facts about cats!

20. Cats sleep 70% of their lives. Now that’s a lot of cat naps! Cats are generally “crepuscular” which means they’re active most frequently during the early morning and evenings. During the daytime is when they like to catch the majority of their zzz’s.

19. Cats are unable to taste sweet foods. Save the desserts for yourself and throw your furry friend a cat treat instead!

18. Having a cat can lower one’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke by 30%. Share your thanks by getting Bivvy cat health insurance for your furry friend to keep them happy and healthy in return!

17. Purring can signal one of three things: self-healing, nervousness or what we commonly think of, contentment.

16. Adult cats only meow for their human’s attention.

15. On the flip side, cats can recognize your voice, but that doesn’t mean they’ll choose to listen to you.

14. Unlike what we see in books and movies, cats should not actually drink a warm saucer of milk. Journal Science Focus reports, “Like all infant mammals, kittens are born able to digest the main sugar in milk, lactose. This sugar is a very valuable source of energy for young animals, but soon after they are weaned, the enzyme that enables them to digest it, lactase, begins to disappear from the gut.” Your adult cat may display similar signs of lactose intolerance as humans, such as with an upset stomach.

13. Another top fact from Science Focus, cats can in fact be trained just as well as dogs. However, their levels of motivation are what differ.

12. Recent studies have found that domestic cats diverged from their wild counterpart 10,000 years ago whereas outdated studies reported they diverged only 4,000 years ago. Now that’s a lot of added history!

11. A cat has five toes on their front paws and four on the back. Outliers are referred to as polydactyl or “Hemingway cats” because author Ernest Hemingway was so fond of them. Bonus fact: Over 45 polydactyl cats now live in Hemingway’s Florida mansion-turned-museum.

10. Speaking of household names, Isaac Newton invented the cat door.

9. An average domestic cat is faster than Olympian Usain Bolt.

8. If it fits, they sits! Cats use their whiskers to sense if they can fit in a space.

7. Cats have 32 individual muscles in their ears. This allows for directional hearing and they can move each ear differently at the same time. In contrast, humans’ ears only have six muscles.

6. Stubbs the cat has been mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska for 15 years.

5. Cats have been to space! The first cat outside earth’s atmosphere was Felicette, or “Astrocat”.

4. You’re probably familiar with Egypt’s Sqhinx, but did you know cats were a mythic symbol of divinity in ancient Egypt? When mourning a family cat’s death in ancient Egypt, family members would shave off their eyebrows as a symbol of their grief.

3. When a cat cleans themselves, it’s often to get your scent off of them. Ouch!

2. A cat’s carbon footprint is similar to that of a VW bug. However, we’d argue cats are cuter.

1. There are 47.1 million households with at least one cat in the U.S. and their owners are 17% more likely to have a graduate degree. Plus, proclaimed “cat people” are more open to new experiences than “dog people.” Both of these prove what we already know: cat lovers are an awesome bunch!

We know your furry friends are important to you. Don’t rely on the nine lives myth and look in to pet health insurance to ensure your pets always receive the care they need. Learn more about Bivvy’s cat insurance or dog insurance for your furry friend today! We offer affordable, right-sized insurance that’s purrfect for your cat or dog.