Interesting facts about cats pt. 4!

Time and time again, my cats have shown their tenacity in surprising me with things I never knew about them before. Once you spend enough time with your kitties, you'll realise that each have a very unique personality and that their behavioural tendencies will different greatly. Much like humans, cats have personality traits that are innate and can only be cultivated with loving care. Even the less desirable traits need a lot of gradual adjustment to minimise and you may end up having to accept them for the way they are.

Still, one of the joys of looking after cats is how uniquely silly each can be. Today, I'll be sharing with you some more interesting facts about our favourite feline friends. Maybe you'll pick up a lot of these from being owners yourselves, but otherwise, look out for these behaviours as they may come as a shock to you!

• Cats actually have a very narrow range of taste buds and thus the variety of foods they can differentiate differ from humans quite drastically. Even still, they can still be very picky about the foods they eat. They have 473 taste buds compared to 9000 in humans.

• The taste buds of are located at the tip of the tongue, and what is more interesting, is they don't have -any- sweet taste buds at all. This means, they really don't have the ability to develop a sweet tooth!

• Did you know, that cats have heart beats that are two or three times faster than a humans? The cats resting heart rate is around 150 beats per minute and at rest can go even up to 210. A human typically has a maximum limit of 220 minus their age, or around 60 to 80 at rest.

• The scent glands the cats use to mark humans are not the same as those used to mark inanimate objects. In fact, the glands located between the eyes and ears are used to mark humans. This is why you'll find cats head butting you. Meanwhile, the glands on the mouth lips and under the chin are used to mark inanimate objects.

• A cat uses it's tongue as it's grooming tool, as such, it has a fine composite of hooked scales that make it's tongue function as a comb as it licks it's own fur.

• Speaking of fur, the skin glands of the cat are located at the base of their hair and they secrete oils to waterproof their fur whilst they groom themselves via licking.

So, did you learn something about your cat today? I certainly did! One thing you'll realise is that cat's are more like humans than you might realise. After-all, we are both mammals and have biology uniquely adapted to inhabiting this planet. Some researchers have said that cats have been living with humans as a domesticated animal for just a few thousand years, but the fact that they have adaptations specific to interaction with humans suggest much much longer.

Do you find your cat head butting you all the time? Now you know why!