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Cats are (almost) liquid

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253 points lnyan | 2 comments | 17 Oct 24 11:43 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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move-on-by ◴[17 Oct 24 15:47 UTC] No.41870772[source]▶
> While dogs slowed down and hesitated before they attempted to use an uncomfortably small opening, in the case of cats, we did not detect this change in their behavior before their attempt to go through even the narrowest openings. However, remarkably, cats showed hesitation both before they attempted to penetrate the shortest openings, and while they moved through it.

I just skimmed, but I didn’t see any mention whiskers. It’s seems to me that cats can make highly precise measurements of width just by sticking their heads in a space, but height judgments requires additional consideration.

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1. melvyn2 ◴[17 Oct 24 16:23 UTC] No.41871106[source]▶
> Cats are also aided by their large and sensitive vibrissae, which are positioned on such locations of their head that the cat can detect nearby obstacles in closer encounters. Vibrissal sensation can compensate for the somewhat weaker vision in cats from closer distances or in poorly illuminated environments. Therefore, it is possible that cats approached the narrow openings in our experiment without differential hesitation, and they could use their vibrissae to assess the suitability of the apertures before penetrating them.
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2. move-on-by ◴[17 Oct 24 16:27 UTC] No.41871130[source]▶
Oh thank you! I’m just a lowly cat owner and did not know what vibrissae are.