Comments on: What Cats See

By: WereBear

WereBear — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:42:33 +0000

Researching this post gave me a lot of insight into how cats would “lose” the treats under their chin, and how a hat would puzzle them, a lot of little things like that. I was aware of how attuned they are to motion; I saw one tracking a lizard with good camouflage, and they would only see it when it moved.

By: Bill the Splut

Bill the Splut — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:23:27 +0000

To clarify:
Byron can follow it across the floor, up walls and onto the ceiling

Umm, I meant that he chases the laser dot across the floor and up walls. He follows it with his eyes after that, and doesn’t actually climb across the ceiling. Imagine what terrifying 2AM pounces kittens would surprise us with if they could!

By: Bill the Splut

Bill the Splut — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:15:04 +0000

I used to throw treats down the uncarpeted back hallway at night, and Kill Kill always zeroed right in on them–unless they stopped moving before she grabbed them. One time the treat was right between her front paws, but it might as well have been in Earth orbit for all she saw of it.

DJ has just discovered the Amazing Laser Pointer Dot, Byron’s favorite old toy. I run it across the floor from my chair to the litter box 10 feet away and then back. DJ always loses it on the turnaround. Byron can follow it across the floor, up walls and onto the ceiling without missing a beat, and has since he was 7 weeks old. I think this is because he’s deaf, missing a cat’s best-developed sense, and his eyesight has improved to compensate. I used to think that he was taller than her, then realized that it was because he was holding his head higher. He led with his eyes, and she with her ears.

By: Margaret Elmendorf

Margaret Elmendorf — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:17:22 +0000

This was really interesting. I did know that cats love to be outside at night but I didn’t know they couldn’t see as well in the bright light. No wonder they sleep all day.
Margaret Elmendorf´s last blog ..Mewmew’s job

By: Naamah

Naamah — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:47:55 +0000

Oh how cool! I hope you do more like this with their other senses! I am fascinated by animals’ perception of the world.

Funny and cute story: Our kitty is black and very long-furred meaning she doesn’t reflect even the very little light a shorthaired glossy cat would. For her entire young adulthood she was horrified and confused when we would grab her up thinking she was laundry (we have lots of black shirts). Perversely, she sleeps in laundry baskets (which could easily have become tragic, but we always put the clothes in by hand one by one anyhow — my mom lost a cat to a dryer, and I have no desire to have that happen to me). The only way to find her in the evening or at night was to kiss-call and see if any random “tee shirt” suddenly opened its shiny little eyes.

Anyway, after about three years of this she learned something. Whenever she didn’t want to be found, she would run under a chair or a piece of furniture, hunker up in a really irregular shape, and then she would CLOSE HER EYES. She was not sleeping or relaxing, she was impersonating a shirt, and she had figured out that it was her eyes that gave her away. She evaded capture for a vet trip for half an hour this way once. Smart cat.

So, yeah, you have to be careful of cats in the near-dark, especially if they are laundry-colored. *lol*

I’ve noticed that two of ours don’t like the TV, but one of ours really, really loves to watch movies with really saturated, bright colors, or movies with lots of green and blue. She loves Phantom of the Opera and she REALLY loves Prince Caspian, and all the scenes in the green, green woods. Underworld, which was processed to be very blue/green bored her, though. I think it was that there wasn’t much contrast — the whole movie was really dark.

We have a huge plasma-screen TV, and what with the way it works and how cats’ eyes work, I think she can see that image better than a CRT tube type TV, which has a refresh rate that works with our human eyes, but might not do so well with a cat’s vision (maybe leading them to experience gaps or lines or jumping images). Also, larger areas of color are going to be easier to see, just like when we are in dim light it’s easier to see what color a thing is if it’s big.

Fascinating stuff. It’s amazing what you can learn about how a cat sees or experiences other senses just by watching what they do. They’re like candy for the amateur naturalist’s brain. Fascinating animals.