Eyes and Vision

The belief that cats can see in the dark is an exaggeration. Felines can see no better in total darkness than humans can, but special night-vision adaptations allow them to see extremely well in even the dimmest light, a vital ability for nocturnal hunters. While sensitive hearing may help the cat initially detect prey, its keen, nighttime-adapted vision permits it to identify the location of a potential meal with deadly, laser-beam accuracy.

Intelligence

Pet owners love to boast about the cleverness of their furry companions. Dog and cat lovers, in particular, seem to relish unending debates over which animal is "smarter." Dog owners often cap their arguments with the fact that dogs have the ability to perform tricks, while cat people counter with the claim that their pets are too intelligent to perform on command. In truth, such methods of pet comparison are futile animal-world versions of mixing apples and oranges. Dogs are pack animals, motivated by a strong need to follow and please the pack's "top" dog (or a human master) in order to receive praise. The solitary cat answers to no one and is motivated by the need to survive. And while trainability may not be the feline's forte, cleverness and adaptability certainly are. Incredibly resourceful and self-reliant, the species has survived thousands of years in radically different environments and living conditions. Even domestic cats will show a crafty, strong-willed and versatile nature.

Sense of Touch

Of all the cat's finely tuned senses, its sensitivity to touch is perhaps the most sophisticated and wondrous. An array of pressure-sensitive touch receptors and a network of message-carrying nerves keep a feline in constant contact with its physical environment. Whether a cat is hunting, eating, playing or simply sleeping, this unbroken communication with the world contributes mightily to its split-second reaction time.

Cat Language You may be surprised by how much they communicate despite their limited vocalizations. Along with their long-distance olfactory dialogues and close-up exchanges of body-language signals, felines possess their own vocabulary of sounds. Long considered a marginal element in the communication system of cats, their spoken language is surprisingly evolved and effective, especially in domestics. Coat and Coloring

Whether a cat wears the equivalent of a windbreaker or a parka usually depends on local climate. African lions, in their short, tan coat, do well on the hot savanna. The snow leopard of Asia's Far East depends on its thick, light- colored coat to fend off cold and blend in with the snow. What makes fur such a sophisticated heating and cooling system? The answer is having as many as three different types of coat hair.

Humans produce only one type of hair, each strand from an individual follicle. In a cat, outer "guard," or primary hairs also grow individually from separate follicles; long and rigid, they keep the feline warm and dry. The more numerous secondary hairs of the undercoat, in contrast, grow in clusters from single follicles. This dense, insulating layer is close to the cat's skin and consists of both shorter, bristly "awn" hairs and soft, wavy "down" hairs. Depending on the cat's environment, the double-layered coat works like household insulation to prevent warmth from escaping when it's cold or entering when it's hot.

Cat fanciers give out ribbons for perfectly patterned coats. For a feline that must survive in the wild, though, coat patterns are a hide-saving form of protection. With the exception of the cheetah, which has a spotted coat that is easy to detect on open plains, wild cats dress in one basic style: camouflage. The stripes, spots or blotches help them blend into their environment by obscuring the distinct outline of their bodies. Typically, all cats within a wild species will have similar patterns — a thousand lions will share one basic look. Any group within a species that deviates has evolved a better disguise for its regional habitat; leopards living in jungles, for example, differ in appearance from those residing in high, snowy mountain ranges.

The earliest ancestors of domestic cats are said to have borne color-banded coats that helped them blend in with their surroundings. But as domestication lessened, the need for hunter's camouflage, mutations to solid colors such as red, black and white began to occur. And once cats with these mutated colors started crossbreeding, the color pattern palette burgeoned into countless variations.