Showing posts with label self-righting mechanism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-righting mechanism. Show all posts

Friday, 5 May 2023

What does the 'cat righting reflex' mean?

The cat righting reflex is a remarkable ability that allows cats to orient their body during a fall, so that they can land on their feet and avoid injury. This reflex is possible due to several factors including their flexible spine, strong muscles, and an inner ear system called the vestibular system that helps them to maintain balance and spatial orientation.

The righting reflex begins to appear at 3–4 weeks of age, and is perfected at 6–9 weeks.

Cat self-righting reflex
Cat self-righting reflex. Image in public domain.

When a cat falls, it quickly analyzes its position relative to the ground and the orientation of its body. The cat then rotates its head, neck, and torso to align with the ground while extending its limbs to reduce its rotational speed and control its descent. This process allows the cat to land on its feet, even from great heights, by adjusting its body position to maintain its equilibrium.


During the fall, the cat also uses its tail to help maintain its balance. The tail acts as a counterbalance, allowing the cat to make small adjustments in its position to maintain its orientation as it rotates its body. Once the cat has successfully landed on its feet, it quickly absorbs the impact by bending its legs, thus reducing the force of the landing.

Overall, the cat righting reflex is a complex, sophisticated process that involves the coordination of multiple physiological systems. While it is still not fully understood, scientists continue to study this fascinating behavior in order to gain insights into the inner workings of the feline body and brain.

Cats need the Earth's gravity to do this. Without gravity self-righting reflex does not work at all. Gravity must the primary 'marker' to which the cat zones in on to figure out their bearings. This video shows how the lose their skill in weightless conditions. The test is arguably cruel.

Friday, 14 May 2021

Cat in Chicago forced to jump from five floors and survives. Here's how.

The caption to the video from The Guardian: "A cat in Chicago has survived after jumping out of a fifth-floor window to escape an apartment fire. Chicago fire department personnel were taking a video of the exterior of the building as firefighters were extinguishing the blaze when a black cat appeared through billowing smoke at a broken window. The feline briefly tested the side of the building with its front paws, then jumped. The cat survived the leap uninjured..."




So, how do domestic cats fall five stories and more without harming themselves? Well, the first point to make is that this cat fell onto grass and as you see the entire fall, you can see the contact. The cat actually bounced off the grass indicating that the ground was quite spongy which certainly had a big beneficial effect.

Notwithstanding that, you will find that domestic cats can fall this kind of height onto concrete and still survive. You probably know by now that they manage to do this because they fan out their legs creating a parachute effect because there is quite a lot of skin between their torso and the upper part of their legs. They become somewhat like a flying squirrel. They reach terminal velocity. In fact, they are safer when they fall from a slightly higher height because it allows the parachute effect to work better.

Cat falls off high rise
Cat falls off high rise. Photo in public domain.

That said many cats die in these falls and I wrote an article about cats falling from Singapore apartment blocks on this particular topic. Below are two more selected pages on the topic of domestic cats falling great heights. The last point to make is that they always right themselves by twisting and therefore they fall on their four legs which also helps to ensure that they generally suffer relatively minor injuries normally from these sorts of falls. Although this is not universally the outcome.

It is remarkable in one way, though, that a domestic cat can jump voluntarily five floors up knowing that they are going to have to fall that great distance. They seem to realise that they are going to survive or they believe that it is possible.

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