Tag: ears

Science

Do Cats Always Land on Their Feet?

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Meredith Hemphill

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Ginger cat jumping off fence
Photo by Dmitry Egorov on Pexels

The short answer is, no, cats don’t always land on their feet. But they do have a remarkable knack for it. They start to develop the uncanny trait by the time they’re three-week-old kittens [7]! And it’s not just domestic cats–wild felines, even big cats like tigers and leopards, can do it, too [3]. Humans have been mystified by this ability for centuries, at least [4]. Most of us aren’t that graceful. Neither are our dogs, horses, guinea pigs, and other pets. So how do our cats land on their feet?

Born to Fall

Cats and many other felines are arboreal animals [3, 6]. This means that in the wild, they spend most of their time in trees. Arboreal animals obviously have to be good at climbing, but they also have to be good at falling [6]. It’s an inevitable danger of life in the trees. So cats have several adaptations to help them fall gracefully. Cats have a high ratio of surface area to body weight, so when they fall, they create a lot of drag and fall more slowly than many other animals [3, 6]. A falling cat instinctively spreads out their legs like a parachute to slow their descent even more [2, 6, 8]. Cats also have relatively long, muscular legs and springy joints that act as shock absorbers [3, 6]. But, of course, that only works when cats land on their feet. This brings us to a particularly complex adaptation, the aerial righting reflex.

The Aerial Righting Reflex

“Photographs of a Tumbling Cat,” 1894 – Image from Public Domain Review

All creatures that live in trees have an aerial righting reflex [6]. The aerial righting reflex describes the ability of these animals to know which way is down while falling and to reorient their bodies to land upright [3-6]. Cats can even execute this maneuver while blindfolded [4]. Physicists and biologists conducted experiments by dropping cats (and sometimes other animals) under various circumstances for centuries, trying to understand how they did it [4]. Then in 1894, the French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey used an early slow-motion photography technique to photograph a falling cat, finally revealing the series of precise twisting motions that cats use to turn themselves right-way-up [4, 5].

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. My mother has admitted to trying the cat-dropping experiment on the family cat when she and my uncle were kids, and during my research I stumbled upon many online videos of people doing the same. I’m sure countless cats have survived such “tests” without injury, but it’s not worth the risk that something might go wrong this time, and your cat gets hurt.

For the aerial righting reflex, cats rely on the semicircular canals deep inside their ears [1, 4, 8]. These tiny, fluid-filled tubes are what many animals use to sense the pull of gravity and to maintain their balance, including humans. If a cat’s semicircular canals are damaged, they can no longer right themselves in the air, even if they can see their surroundings [4]. Using the information from these inner ear structures, the cat’s brain quickly establishes which way is up vs. down. Then they employ some physics.

Some Physics

The angular momentum of a spinning object is a function of its mass, the distribution of that mass, and its rotation rate. If no outside force acted upon the object, the angular momentum wouldn’t change. This is why a figure skater spins faster when they pull their arms tight against their body. They are decreasing the distribution of their mass, but their mass itself can’t change, so their rotation speed must increase. This is the principle behind how cats flip themselves around in midair. [4, 5]

The first step of the aerial righting reflex, then, is for a cat to arch their back, which for physics purposes separates their body into two rotating halves. Then they rotate their head to get their front half spinning and extend their hind legs. Tucking in their front legs causes their front half to rotate quickly. To conserve their angular momentum, their back half will start to rotate in the opposite direction around its axis, but with their hind legs stuck out, it rotates more slowly. Extending the front legs stops the rotation of that half of their body. The back legs catch up, and after about 1.5 seconds, kitty has turned all the way around to land on her four paws. [4, 5]

If you find that explanation hard to follow…me too. I had to read it about ten times and look at the diagrams in chapter seven of Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics to figure it out [4]. Looking at Marey’s photograph series and watching videos like the one below helped, too.

The righting reflex in slow motion

High Rise Syndrome

On the subject of cats mostly landing on their feet, I want to tell you about high rise syndrome. With the literal rise of urban life building taller and taller apartment complexes, cats and other pets sometimes fall off of balconies and out of windows [2, 3, 6, 8]. Cats have great survival skills, but nothing in nature equipped them to think about clear glass or twenty-story buildings [2]. They’re instincts evolved to climbs trees, not concrete jungles. Unfortunately, because cats are particularly inclined to climb and pounce at birds, they are also especially likely to experience these falls [2, 8]. The term high rise syndrome can refer either to the phenomenon of cats falling from tall buildings [8] or to veterinarians’ and researchers’ curious observation that cats tend to have better outcomes when falling from higher stories than lower ones [2].

The research isn’t entirely consistent, but there are indications beyond the anecdotal evidence of veterinarians that it might be true, at least sometimes [8]. The most dangerous falls are generally said to be between the second and sixth stories (20-60 ft or 6-18 m). A fall from the first story is hardly even a fall, especially for a cat. But why would they be in less danger about the sixth story? Experts believe that when cats fall from just a few stories, they don’t have enough time to complete the aerial righting reflex, so they may land in awkward positions that cause greater injury [2].

Of course, there is a height at which the benefit of the reflex wouldn’t be enough, but for obvious reasons no one has experimented to find out exactly what that height is. We do know that cats can survive thirty-story falls, often with severe injuries [2]. However, a 1987 study in New York City of cats brought to a veterinarian after falls from high-rises found that not only did 90% survive, but one cat that fell thirty-two stories suffered only a chipped tooth and a collapsed lung [6]. A study published in 2004 which looked at 119 cats that fell from apartment buildings and were brought to a clinic in Zagreb, Croatia, found that the most common injury was a broken leg [8].

Preventing Your Cat from Falling

The researchers in the 2004 study also found that younger cats fell more often which makes sense, because kittens and young cats are more energetic, more curious, and less aware of the world’s dangers [8]. They reported that 65% of high-rise falls happened in the warmest months, from April-September [8]. Other research has shown the same thing: the warm spring/summer season leads to more incidents of high rise syndrome [2, 8]. This happens because people tend to open windows and balcony doors when it’s warm out [2, 8]. So either keep your doors and windows closed or put screens on them, especially if your cat is a youngster [2, 8]! And always keep an eye on kitty if you let them go out on the balcony. Outside time is great, but that’s not a safe place for a cat to be unsupervised.

In 2014, Gizmo survived a 12-story fall from his Manhattan apartment. He has a lot to say about it.

Works Cited

  1. Alderton, D. (1992). Cats: The visual guide to more than 250 types of cats from around the world. Dorling Kindersley Ltd. London.
  2. Becker, M. and Spadafori, G. (2006). Do cats always land on their feet? 101 of the most perplexing questions answered about feline unfathomables, medical mysteries & befuddling behaviors. Health Communications, Inc. Deerfield Beach, FL.
  3. Bondi Vet. (n.d.). Why do cats always land on their feet? https://www.bondivet.com/promo/cats-land-on-their-feet
  4. Gbur, G. (2019). The cat righting reflex. In Falling felines and fundamental physics. Yale University Press. New Haven, CT.
  5. Kesten, P. (2018, June 1). Why do cats always land on their feet? Santa Clarita University. https://www.scu.edu/illuminate/thought-leaders/phil-kesten/why-do-cats-always-land-on-their-feet.html
  6. Nasaw, D. (2012, March 25). Who, what, why: How do cats survive falls from great heights? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17492802
  7. Sechzera, J. A., Folsteina, S. E., Geigera, E. H., Mervisa, R. F., et al. (1984). Development and maturation of postural reflexes in normal kittens. Experimental Neurology, 86(3), 493–505. doi:10.1016/0014-4886(84)90084-0
  8. Vnuk, D., Pirkić, B., Matičić, D., Radišić, B., et al. (2004). Feline high-rise syndrome: 119 cases (1998–2001). Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 6(5), 305–312. doi:10.1016/j.jfms.2003.07.001

Published June 11th, 2023

Breed Profiles

Scottish Fold: Charming but Controversial

mehshadoweye

Meredith Hemphill

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Brown tabby cat with folded ears
Image by Elena Borisova from Pixabay

If you ask someone to draw a cat, they would probably give it a head with two triangular ears on top. If they draw as well as I do, a circle and two triangles might be all you get. But not all cats have perky ears. The Scottish Fold breed only exists because one barn cat’s flattened ears made her stand out.

William Ross was a shepherd, but he was also a cat fancier. He and his wife bred British Shorthairs. In 1961, he was visiting the McRae farm in the Tayside region of Scotland when he noticed something peculiar about one of the barn cats. Her name was Susie, and she was a white she-cat with strange ears that folded forward and down on her head. Ross thought this unusual trait might be the makings of a new breed, so he asked the McRae’s if he could buy Susie. They reached a compromise: instead, he could have the pick of Susie’s first litter. When the time came, Ross took home a white female kitten he named Snooks and subsequently used his own British Shorthairs to found a new breed.

The Rosses originally called the breed lop-ears, thinking of lop-eared rabbits, but they later decided on the current name in honor of the cats’ country of origin. The breed reached the United States in the early 1970s, and by now it is popular around the world. It remains a rare breed. All true Scottish Folds are still descended from Susie via Snooks, so there hasn’t been long to build up a large population from that single breeding line, and they can be difficult to breed for genetic reasons.

Breed Characteristics

Of course, the thing that Scottish Folds are known for is their folded ears, but actually not all of them have this trait. The ear folding is caused by a spontaneous mutation affecting the development of cartilage (1). The mutation is incompletely dominant, so kittens only need one copy of the mutation to have folded ears, but the presentation of the trait may be intermediate. As such, there are three degrees of ear folding: single, double, and triple. The single fold bends forward about halfway up the ear and doesn’t hug the head, while the double and triple folds are progressively tighter (2). The triple fold is most desirable for show cats (2).

Gray cat with vase of roses
Scottish Folds have a habit of lounging in unusual positions – Image by Paul Faerstein from Pixabay

When a Scottish Fold doesn’t inherit the ear folding mutation, they will have straight ears. Sometimes straight-eared Scottish Folds are acceptable for showing under a different name, but many organizations don’t accept them (2). They are an important part of breeding programs (3), however, and are often sold as pets for a cheaper price than their folded-ear compatriots (2). Breeders won’t know which kittens have which ears until about three to four weeks of age, though, because all Scottish Folds are born with straight ears that later droop down–or not.

Regardless of ear type, all Scottish Folds are medium-sized cats with a stocky body and round head. They have large, wide eyes which probably contribute to the notion that the folded-ear cats look like owls. Scottish Folds have somewhat short muzzles and legs. They may have short or long fur and be any color or pattern except point.

Scottish Folds are playful, moderately active cats that are known for being quiet and sweet. They are people-oriented but typically get along well with other pets, too, as well as children. Although they like attention, they aren’t so much a clingy breed. They are laidback and adaptable, the kind of cat that can roll with the changes.

Scottish Folds Acting Silly

Health Concerns

Scottish Folds were first recognized as a breed by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) in the United Kingdom in 1966, but only five years later the GCCF banned further registry of the breed (2). They still don’t recognize the breed (4). In 2017, the British Veterinary Association called for the breed to be banned outright (4). The cause of all this is concerns over the health and welfare of the cats.

All pedigree cats have higher incidences of some diseases. The question is whether the characteristic of folded ears which Scottish Folds are bred for inherently leads to suffering. At first, the GCCF stopped registering Scottish Folds over concerns that the folded ears caused a risk of ear mites, ear infections, and deafness, but this is now believed to be untrue (2). However, there are demonstrated health problems associated with the mutation in cartilage development that causes the ear drooping, and this has led to the continuing controversy about the breed.

The disease associated with the folded ear mutation is called osteochondrodysplasia. It is a disorder of abnormal bone and cartilage development which leads to arthritis and can be debilitating (1). It primarily affects the tail and leg joints from the knees down (1). The British Veterinary Association says that all Scottish Folds with folded ears will suffer from osteochondrodysplasia to some degree during their lifetime (4), and there are studies that back this up.

A study that examined the inheritance of the disease in Scottish Folds did find that all cats with folded ears had the disease (5). On the other hand, cats in the study with mild osteochondrodysplasia did not present symptoms (5). Of course, with cats, it’s sometimes hard to tell. Another study which examined Scottish Folds in clinics and a cattery also came to the conclusion that this is a breed-wide problem and recommended not breeding folded-ear Scottish Folds (6).

Image by cat-cheng from Pixabay

Some think the problem has been blown out of proportion. The BBC quoted a woman who has been breeding Scottish Folds for over a decade: “If I had discovered there had been a significant problem I would certainly have stopped breeding them” (4). And you would certainly hope this would be the case. Scottish Folds are usually crossed to British Shorthairs, American Shorthairs, or Scottish Folds with straight ears in breeding programs to limit any health problems (7). Cats with two copies of the folded-ear mutation are more likely to have severe skeletal problems (8).

To Have and to Fold

Scottish Folds are without doubt charming and easy-going cats. Whether their genetic health problems are any worse than those faced by other pedigree cats is still controversial. If you are interested in a Scottish Fold, the only special grooming needs they have are frequent checks inside the ears and a cleaning if you find it dirty–for the folded-ear cats, that is. Much of the appeal of the Scottish Fold has been the cuteness factor of the folded-ear cats, but don’t dismiss the straight-eared ones out of hand. They have the same sweet, chill personality and are eager to have forever homes, too. Check out Scottish Fold Rescue to look for Scottish Folds that need adoption in the United States.

Fun Facts

  • Taylor Swift is the proud parent of two Scottish Folds named Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson. They’re quite the Instagram stars. (9)
  • Susie was not the first cat to have folded ears. The earliest record of one was in 1796, when an English sailor brought one home from China. (7)
  • Long-haired Scottish Folds are sometimes considered a separate breed called the Highland Fold (2).

Works Cited

  1. International Cat Care. (2018, September 5). Scottish Fold disease – osteochondrodysplasia. https://icatcare.org/advice/scottish-fold-disease-osteochondrodysplasia/
  2. Petfinder. (n.d.). Scottish Fold. https://www.petfinder.com/cat-breeds/scottish-fold/
  3. Cat Fanciers’ Association. (n.d.). About the Scottish Fold. https://cfa.org/scottish-fold/
  4. Brocklehurst, S. (2017, April 27). Should Scottish fold cats be banned? BBC Scotland. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-39717634
  5. Takanosu, M., et al. (2008). Incomplete dominant osteochondrodysplasia in heterozygous Scottish Fold cats. Journal of Small Animal Practice, 49(4), 197-199. https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/49b03dae-ac50-3c53-96f5-f1281561939d/#
  6. Malik, R., et al. (1999). Osteochondrodysplasia in Scottish Fold cats. Australian Veterinary Journal, 77(2), 85-92. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.1999.tb11672.x
  7. Hill’s Pet. (n.d.). Scottish Fold cat information and personality traits. https://www.hillspet.com/cat-care/cat-breeds/scottish-fold
  8. UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory. (n.d.). Scottish Fold. https://vgl.ucdavis.edu/test/scottish-fold
  9. Cook, J.R. (2019, July 10). They’re beauty, they’re grace…a guide to Taylor Swift’s absolutely adorable cats. Life and Style. https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/guide-to-taylor-swifts-cats-meredith-olivia-and-benjamin/
  10. Cat Time. (n.d.). Scottish Fold. https://cattime.com/cat-breeds/scottish-fold-cats#/slide/1

Published August 2nd, 2020

Updated October 29th, 2020