The oldest known cat was alive 9,500 years ago
Want something interesting to talk about at dinner? Here you go! Originally, it was believed that Egyptians domesticated the cat. But, did you know that in 2004 archaeologists in France discovered a 9,500 year old deceased cat in Cyprus? This means that there is further to analyse on whether the Egyptians did originally domesticate the cat, and that it predates Egyptian art about cats by over 4,000 years!
Cats spend 70% of their lives sleeping
Wish you could spend more than half your life sleeping? Well for cats, that’s a reality! According to Veterinary Hub, Cats actually spend almost 70% of their lives sleeping. This means that each day they actually only spend around 8 hours of it awake, and the rest of the 13-16 hours asleep! But be warned, cats are still known to have their 10 minutes of ‘crazy time’ everyday, bouncing of the walls and chasing EVRYTHING! I mean, it’s no wonder they have a 10 minute energy burst after sleeping most of the day!
A cat was the mayor of an Alaskan town for 20 years.
Yep, you read that right! An orange tabby named Stubbs was the nominated mayor of small Alaskan town, Talkeetna and served for 20 years! Although he didn’t have any actual legislative power, locals and tourists still loved to see the fan-favourite cat walking round the street, and he did attend multiple uncontested elections! How bizarre! He did unfortunately die in July 2017 at the age of 20.
The longest ever cat was recorded at 48.5 inches
Domesticated cats are often quite small and dainty, however this house cat grew double in size. The worlds longest cat was Maine Coon, Stewie, and he measured at 48.5 inches! Stewie also held the world record for the cat with the longest tail at a whopping 16.34 inches! Unfortunately, Stewie died in 2013 following on his battle from cancer, but he still remains to be the longest cat ever recorded.
This cat was a millionaire!
Blackie was the richest cat in the world as he held $7 million to his name! When his millionaire owner passed away, he refused to give any of his wealth to his family members, and instead left the money to his cat! Blackie probably doesn’t even realise how lucky and wealthy he actually is! We can’t believe this fact!
Cats walk like camels and giraffes
Have you ever noticed that cats walk exactly like camels and giraffes? Well, you will now! The way they walk is both right feet first, and then both their left feet. Therefore, half their body move forward at once. Camels and giraffes are the only other species to walk with this sequence. Don’t believe us? Look at the next you see walking!
Isaac Newton invented the cat door
Need a question for your pub quiz? How about ‘who invented the cat door’? The famous scientist is mainly known for calculating gravity, however he also invented the cat door. According to How Stuff Works, when Newton was studying at Cambridge, he was constantly interrupted by his cats scratching at the door to be let out. Therefore, he found the Cambridge carpenter to saw 2 holes in the door, and the rest is history! Apparently, you can still see these holes at the university today!
In 1963 a cat went to space
On October 18th 1963 Felicette the ‘Astrocat’ braved the great unknown and was the one and only cat to ever go into space. Multiple cats underwent ‘cat astronaut training’ but only Felicette, later know as Felix, was chosen. However, unfortunately Felix’s story ended in tragedy as 2 months after landing back on earth she was euthanised so that the scientists could carry out a post mortem on how the space affected her.
Ancient Egyptians would shave their eyebrows off when their cats died
According to Ancient History Encyclopedia, in 440BC Herodotus wrote that when a pet cat dies, it’s a time for family members to show their mourning through shaving off their eyebrows. To this day we aren’t entirely sure what the link was between eyebrows and a pets death, however what we are sure of is that this fact is an interesting one for the dinner table!
Housecats share 95.6% of their genetic makeup with tigers
Just like our DNA is with gorillas, cats are genetically the same as tigers (minus a few factors). With sharing 95.6% of their genetic makeup with one another, cats and tigers share similar traits like the way they stalk their prey, punce on their prey, and also similar behaviours like scent and urine. If it wasn’t for cats being significantly smaller, cats would have actually been deadly like tigers!