Hiya one of the auction items me won was the cat watchin book by Desmond Morris. Great book. Really makes me want to study cats much more.
Here's some bits from it.........................................
The early Egyptians considered cats scared and the punishment for killing one was death, having once torn a Roman soldier limb from limb for hurting a cat.
Why does a cat roll over to lie on its back When it sees you?
When you enter a room where a cat is lying asleep on the floor you greet it with a few friendly words, it may respond by turning over on its back, stretching out its legs as far as they will go yawning, exercising its claws and gently twitching the tip of it’s tail. As it performs these actions, it stares at you, checking your mood. This is a cat's way of offering you a passively friendly reaction and it is something which is only done to close family intimates. Few cats would risk such a greeting if the person entering the room were a stranger, because the belly-up posture makes the animal highly vulnerable. Indeed, this is the essence of its friendliness. The cat is saying, in effect, 'I roll over to show you my belly to demonstrate that I trust you enough to adopt this highly vulnerable posture in your presence.'
A more active cat would rush over to you and start rubbing against you as a form of friendly greeting, but a cat in a lazy, sleepy mood prefers the belly-roll display. The yawning and stretching that accompany it reflect the sleepiness of the animal - a sleepiness which it is prepared to interrupt just so much and no more. The slight twitching of the tail indicates that there is a tiny element of conflict developing - a conflict between remaining stretched out and jumping up to approach the new arrival.
It is not always safe to assume that a cat making this belly-up display is prepared to allow you to stroke its soft underside. It may appear to be offering this option, but frequently an attempt to respond with a friendly hand is met with a swipe from an irritated paw. The belly region is so well protected by the cat that it finds contact there unpleasant, except in relation¬ships where the cat and its human owner have developed a very high degree of social intimacy. Such a cat may trust its human family to do almost anything to it. But the more typical, wary cat draws the line at approaches to its softer parts.
Why does a cat chatter its teeth when it sees a bird through the window?
Not every owner has observed this curious action, but it is so strange that it is a case of `once seen never forgotten'. The cat, sitting on a window-sill, spots a small bird conspicuously hopping about outside and stares at it intently. As it does so it begins juddering its teeth in a jaw movement which has variously been described as a 'tooth-rattling stutter', a `tetanic reaction' and `the frustrated chatter of the cat's jaws in the mechanical staccato fashion'. What does it mean?
This is what is known as a `vacuum activity': The cat is performing its highly specialized killing-bite, as if it already had the unfortunate bird clamped between its jaws. Careful observation of the way in which cats kill their prey has revealed that there is a peculiar jaw movement employed to bring about an almost instantaneous death. This is important to a feline predator because even the most timid of prey may lash out when actually seized, and it is vital for the cat to reduce as much as possible any risk of injury to itself from the sharp beak of a bird or the powerful teeth of a rodent. So there is no time to lose. After the initial pounce, in which the prey is pinioned by the strong claws of the killer's front feet, the cat quickly crunches down with its long canine teeth, aiming at the nape of the neck. With a rapid juddering movement of the jaws it inserts these canines into the neck, slipping them down between vertebrae to sever the spinal cord. This killing-bite immediately incapacitates the prey and it is an enactment of this special movement that the frustrated, window-gazing cat is performing, unable to control itself at the tantalizing view of the juicy little bird outside.
Why do cats sneer?
Every so often a cat can be seen to pause and then adopt a curious sneering expression, as if disgusted with something. When first observed, _ this reaction was in fact called an `expression of disgust' and described as the cat `turning up its nose' at an unpleasant smell, such as urine deposited by a rival cat.
This interpretation is now known to be an error. The truth is almost the complete opposite. When the cat makes this strange grimace, known technically as the flehmen response, it is in reality appreciating to the full a delicious fragrance. We know this because tests have proved that urine from female cats in strong sexual condition produces powerful grimacing in male cats,-while urine from females not in sexual condition produces
a much weaker reaction. _
The response involves the following elements: the eat stops in its tracks, raises its head slightly; draws back its upper lip and opens its mouth a little. Inside the half-opened mouth it is sometimes possible to see the tongue flickering or licking the roof of the mouth. The cat sniffs and gives the impression of an almost trancelike concentration for a few moments: During this time it slows its breathing rate arid may even hold its breath for several seconds, after sucking in air. All the time it stares in front of it as if in a kind of reverie:
If this behaviour were to be likened to a hungry man inhaling the enticing smells emanating from a busy kitchen, it would not be too far from the truth; but- there is an important difference; For the cat as employing a sense organ that we sadly lack. The cat's sixth sense is to be found: in a small structure situated in the roof of the mouth. It is a little tube opening into the mouth just behind the upper front teeth. Known as the vomero-nasal or Jacobsen's organ, it is about half an inch long and is highly sensitive to airborne chemicals. It can best be described as a taste-smell organ and is extremely important to cats when they are reading the odor-news deposited around
Interesting Hey!!
