It’s not often that your heart is warmed by the knowledge of scientifically calculated katitude. But today is your lucky day because this is one of those rare opportunities. It won’t just pull the strings of your second most important organ; it also covers basic information about our favorite feline friends (that is, until the domestication of the cheetah), whether fuzzy or hairless.
Related: 10 amazing animals with unique environment modifications
10 Allergic to cats? Enter “CRISPR Kitties”
A Virginia biotech company called InBio, which specializes in things like asthma and allergy research, is exploring CRISPR to make one of the world’s most popular animals less allergenic. Such “CRISPR kitties” could be a boon for many people prone to sneezing.
Cat allergy affects up to 15% of people, meaning that “the domestic cat is the most common source of mammalian allergen”. Most affected people are attacked by a protein called Fel d 1, which mediates the allergic reaction in 95% of cat-allergic patients. This allergy-precipitating protein is in cat saliva and skin oil, and good luck avoiding them.
Fortunately, scientists have discovered that this protein doesn’t seem to do anything, and cats could easily live without it. Its real purpose? Who knows. It is known that targeting the production of this protein through gene editing could be much more effective than allergy pills and other treatments.[1]
9 Feline contraception
Helping cats enjoy happy and healthy lives also depends on humanely reducing stray populations. Still, it requires surgery, which requires time and resources. Now researchers have tested a simply administered non-surgical “gene shot” on six cats with promising results.
The small size of the study was intentional, allowing for rigorous scientific examination of each cat and the mechanics of the new anti-pregnancy approach. As a result, the researchers were able to extensively analyze “15,220 freeze-dried stool samples for estrogen and progesterone levels and [examine] 1,200 hours of video on mating behavior,” says William Swanson, director of animal research at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden.
The injection injects the gene into the muscle cells, which causes the contraceptive anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) to be pumped out. AMH works by disrupting the development of egg follicles in the ovaries. Giving the cats this gene therapy prevented them from becoming pregnant for at least two years. More research is needed to decide its overall safety and effectiveness, but it’s a fascinating advance for the global well-being of cats.[2]
8 Cats in squares
A cat’s senses are excellent; their eyes are six times better than ours in low light conditions, so while you may accidentally bump into your cat in the dark, your cat will never accidentally bump into you in the dark. Not by accident anyway.
Exceptional visual perception and brain wiring is why cats love to sit in 2D squares or other shapes, even if those shapes are incomplete (ie four cutouts spaced apart in a square shape).
The fact that they appear to create a closed form is the Kanizs Square Illusion, exploiting our brain’s tendency to fill in gaps and see outlines that aren’t there. The same thing happens in the cat’s mind, which means your kitty is likely to love a flat, incomplete square as much (or almost as much) as a crisp, cozy box.[3]
7 Leg “Beard”
Cats don’t just have whiskers on their body parts. They also have beards on non-bearded body parts, including the backs of their legs. They’re called carpal vibrissae because carpus means wrist, and vibrissae is the fancy Latin scientific word for whiskers, or technically nose hairs.
Like the whiskers around their snouts, these vibrissae don’t just tickle you; they are sensory organs used to sense the cat’s surroundings. They can detect small movements, such as changes in air pressure and the environment, to help cats navigate their world and achieve their superior feline agility. By using these whiskers on their wrists, cats can feel surfaces and objects, giving them better spatial awareness, environmental orientation and hunting skills.[4]
6 Gray tabby cat – the first cat
If you have a gray and dark tabby cat, congratulations, you have your first cat! Our modern domesticated (controversial) cats are known as Felis catusand they are descended from Africans Felis silvestris lybica, which basically looks like a tabby cat. A cat’s pattern is such a crucial factor in helping researchers decide on the wildness or relative wildness of a cat.
For example, some coat patterns, including mottling, arose as a result of genetic changes much later in the domestication history of cats. So, if you have a spotted grimalkin, thank the Middle Ages. But don’t be too thankful for that, because general cat attitudes haven’t always been great, to say the least.[5]
5 He will work for food… No!
Cats prefer to get food without having to work for it. That’s clever, but also unsurprising. Surprisingly, other animals are the opposite. So much so, in fact, that researchers at UC Davis conducted an entire study on cats’ willingness to suffer toil for dinner.
This is called contrafreeloading, which means that some animals would rather work for food. Mikel Delgado, UC Davis cat behaviorist and veterinary researcher: “There is a wealth of research that shows that most species, including birds, rodents, wolves, primates—even giraffes—prefer to work for food.
The study gave 17 cats two food options: easy treats on a tray and a food puzzle. Most chose easy foods. Perhaps because the puzzle did not stimulate natural cat behavior such as ambushing. Cats still love puzzles, though, and that’s important because…[6]
4 Cat Puzzles Free the hunter
UC Davis researchers previously studied cat puzzles to see how they benefit cats. The study found that about one-third of cat people have given their furry friends riddles, though it would probably be best if that number were higher.
Puzzles benefit cats by exercising their wild foraging instincts. Before humans “came and took their jobs,” cats used to forage and engage in other predatory practices. You could say that this puzzle helps the cats with mental enrichment by giving them back their work and restoring a sense of wild achievement. Additionally, previous research found that puzzles “helped cats with weight loss, anxiety, and urinating outside the box.”
Unfortunately, many cat owners try puzzles but soon give up. People should definitely keep doing it, the study says, but start with the easier ones and work your way up.[7]
3 What cat genetics tells us
According to a University of Missouri study, humans have been cats longer than some previously thought. While some have said that anthro-feline relationships really began 4,000(i) years ago, probably around Egypt, genetic research pushes that it dates back to the Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago. When humans began storing grain, the rodent population exploded and took advantage of our hard-earned wheat.
A cat also happened to be benefiting from our hard-earned wheat rodents. While large domesticated animals such as cattle and horses have undergone several domestications, the cat has undergone one such transformation, according to feline geneticist and MU Distinguished Professor Leslie A. Lyons. Our cats, really only semi-domesticated, became the cats we know from the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago, and then traveled the world with us.
Importantly, such genetic studies have produced databases that have helped significantly reduce some feline diseases, such as polycystic kidney disease.[8]
2 Coat colors, patterns and length reveal history, temperament and health
Long after the fertility of the Fertile Crescent, cats underwent a second human-assisted transformation during the Classical Period in Egypt, approximately 3,500–4,000 years ago. Other evidence points to attempts to create a leopard cat in China, but no such kittens (or their relatives) remain.
These findings also highlight how cats have conquered the world. Ancient cat DNA from port cities shows that humans brought their feline companions aboard their ships, presumably to subdue the rodents that plagued the ships’ food supplies. Interestingly, studies of the evolution of cat colors and patterns have linked these traits to specific behaviors (such as aggression), origins, and disease prevalence.
However, the ancient Egyptians did not respect their cats as we like to think; they practiced various cruel rituals (including the mass establishment of cat mills) to appease the gods for their human benefit. However, this depressing history class is for another day because it’s about happy cats.[9]
1 Finland has created a new cat
The universe released a new type of cat, recently described by science, in May 2024. This rare domestic Finnish cat has a new coat pattern called “salmiak” and it’s such a cookies and cream vibe. People in Finland started noticing this pattern around 2007 when they noticed that instead of conventional tuxedos, these black and white ones were rocking a color gradation like a sprinkle of salt and pepper. The ombre effect occurs when the coat grows lighter from the roots to the ends, from black to white.
To make it official, scientists identified genetic mechanics in the journal Animal genetics as “a deletion 95 kb downstream of the KIT gene”. Oh, of course that makes sense! To put it more simply, the missing piece of DNA leads to the “salmiak” coat type, named after a popular type of Finnish salt licorice. Because Finns love licorice for some reason. But they also love cats, so it compares.[10]