A cat can jump up to five times its own height in a single bound.
The little tufts of hair in a cat’s ear that help keep out dirt direct sounds into the ear, and insulate the ears are called “ear furnishings.”
The ability of a cat to find its way home is called “psi-traveling.” Experts think cats either use the angle of the sunlight to find their way or that cats have magnetized cells in their brains that act as compasses.
One reason that kittens sleep so much is because a growth hormone is released only during sleep.
A cat has 230 bones in its body. A human has 206. A cat has no collarbone, so it can fit through any opening the size of its head.
A cat’s nose pad is ridged with a unique pattern, just like the fingerprint of a human.
If they have ample water, cats can tolerate temperatures up to 133 °F.
A cat’s heart beats nearly twice as fast as a human heart, at 110 to 140 beats a minute.
Cats don’t have sweat glands over their bodies like humans do. Instead, they sweat only through their paws.
The claws on the cat’s back paws aren’t as sharp as the claws on the front paws because the claws in the back don’t retract and, consequently, become worn.
Cats make about 100 different sounds. Dogs make only about 10.
Researchers are unsure exactly how a cat purrs. Most veterinarians believe that a cat purrs by vibrating vocal folds deep in the throat. To do this, a muscle in the larynx opens and closes the air passage about 25 times per second.
A cat almost never meows at another cat, mostly just humans. Cats typically will spit, purr, and hiss at other cats.
A cat’s back is extremely flexible because it has up to 53 loosely fitting vertebrae. Humans only have 34.
Some cats have survived falls of over 65 feet (20 meters), due largely to their “righting reflex.” The eyes and balance organs in the inner ear tell it where it is in space so the cat can land on its feet. Even cats without a tail have this ability.
A cat can travel at a top speed of approximately 31 mph (49 km) over a short distance.
A cat’s hearing is better than a dog’s. And a cat can hear high-frequency sounds up to two octaves higher than a human.
A cat’s brain is biologically more similar to a human brain than it is to a dog’s. Both humans and cats have identical regions in their brains that are responsible for emotions.
And that’s how cats work.
I learned more about cats in this post than I did in my freshamn biology class in college
Don’t tell me that if you find a cardboard box large enough to fit you that you don’t have an urge to crawl inside it, that some part of your brain doesn’t go “ooh! fort!” before you tell yourself that it’s better to not have a large box take up space. Cats just don’t have inhibitions about it.
I learned in a Latin Studies class (with a chill white dude professor) that when the Europeans first saw Aztec cities they were stunned by the grid. The Aztecs had city planning and that there was no rational lay out to European cities at the time. No organization.
When the Spanish first arrived in Tenochtitlan (now downtown mexico city) they thought they were dreaming. They had arrived from incredibly unsanitary medieval Europe to a city five times the size of that century’s london with a working sewage system, artificial “floating gardens” (chinampas), a grid system, and aqueducts providing fresh water. Which wasn’t even for drinking! Water from the aqueducts was used for washing and bathing- they preferred using nearby mountain springs for drinking. Hygiene was a huge part if their culture, most people bathed twice a day while the king bathed at least four times a day.
Located on an island in the middle of a lake, they used advanced causeways to allow access to the mainland that could be cut off to let canoes through or to defend the city. The Spanish saw their buildings and towers and thought they were rising out of the water. The city was one of the most advanced societies at the time.
Anyone who thinks that Native Americans were the savages instead of the filthy, disease ridden colonizers who appeared on their land is a damn fool.
just a note, we don’t think of old european cities as ruins, because those civilizations continued and kept building over the old–there are no abandoned ruins for us to visit & photograph. when we picture those old cities, we have only mental images drawn from our own assumptions & prejudices–images that tend to glorify ‘civilized’ europe.
since victors write history, our image of native american cities was created by colonizers motivated to uphold the ‘native savage’ myth. when we think of these civilizations now, we think of ‘uncivilized’ (rough, broken, abandoned) ruins, because that’s what remains. ruins are the only thing left. because of the destruction wrought by western invaders, these civilizations never had a chance to continue building. they were destroyed, and all we have left is an unimaginative shadow of their former glory.
went to peru and visited some of their museums and learned inca history that american schools don’t teach you. basically you know why they were beaten out by the spanish invaders? because incas were mostly scientists and not warriors. they had advanced medicine, farming and science technology. THATS what they were good at - tech - not building weapons to most efficiently kill people. the spanish were good at that. so they won. basically the real savages and thugs won and murdered a bunch of scientists, and their technology and advancements are lost forever. it took into the 20th century for colonizer technology to advance in the field of medicine and agriculture to the level of the incas. colonizers literally set human knowledge back like 500 years.
It’s crazy to me that, literally everyone in the world was doing just fine until Europeans showed up flipped the script
i mean all of this yes but if you are nonnative please make sure you are not internalizing this idea that somehow our cultures are more “worthy” of preservation or w/e bc we were “advanced” by european standards
let’s please bust the myth that western europe was somehow this bastion of technology and knowledge (bc it is absolutely untrue) WITHOUT devaluing indigenous cultures that didn’t create long-standing monuments or what have you
