How many cat colors are there?

Cat colors nearly always relate to cat breeds as opposed to species. If the question means "How many cat colors and pattern combinations are there for the cat breeds" (which is what I think the question means) the answer, per Gloria Stephens in her excellent book: legacy of the cat (lower case title) is....144...Hope this helps :)

If the question is purely about cat breed coat colors I don't know the answer because the question might be too tricky to answer bearing in mind that color types are dictated by the cat associations of which there are several. They can have different ideas. Comments welcomed ;)

Sorry for the weak answer. I am watching the men's final at Wimbledon 2016 while writing this... :)

How many cat species are there?

Depending on whose version of taxonomy that you rely on there are between 36-41 species of cat. The variation is because some scientists treat subspecies as species and vice versa. If you treat a species as a subspecies it reduces the number of species. If you treat a subspecies as a species then the number rises. This latter scenario is more common and why Wikipedia list 41 or 40 species of cat.

Personally I rely on the famous book: Wild Cats Of The World by Mel and Fiona Sunquist who list 36 species. On my website (PoC) I list 37. The reason given is stated on this page which is the first of two pages on all the wild cat species.

Note: "species" is not "breed". Species is a scientific term within the science of taxonomy while "breed" is a cat breeder's term. All breeds are one species felis silvestris catus.

You can see a full page written in straightforward English on the wild cat species by clicking this link. Hope this helps.

Cats Are Jerks. Discuss

Cats are jerks that's what some people say. They compiled a list of cats being jerks on a major website and every occasion can be explained in terms of natural cat behaviour on the one hand and the human's rather peculiar desire to be amused by the domestic cat on the other hand.

Name me an occasion when a cat is being jerk and I will name you the reason why the cat is not being a jerk. And the person who described the cat as being a jerk is really the jerk.

There are countless examples. To name a couple. Your cat is lying on your computer keyboard. He is in the way. He's a jerk. No he's not. He just wants to be near you. Or the keyboard may be warm because it has been used a lot. He likes the warmth. He does not know that he is on a computer keyboard. I guess that is obvious even to the biggest human jerk.

Recently, or not so long ago, there were a whole range of videos about cats being scared of cucumbers. Some people might say the cat is behaving like a jerk but I'd say the cat was simply temporarily scared of a strange object put down behind him. This is normal. The person who put the cucumber on the ground behind the cat knowing that the cat would be frightened is the jerk because he did it for his amusement at the expense of making his cat frightened.

It all depends how you look at it. A lot of people, most of them are probably non-cat owning people, turn to the domestic cat as a source of entertainment on YouTube. They're looking for cats behaving as jerks which they find entertaining. It's all a question of perception. Some people will find some aspects of the cat's behaviour as strange and as a consequence they describe the cat as being a jerk.

I see cat behavior as cause-and-effect; as natural behaviour caused by any form of stimulus or circumstance. All of it can be explained as natural behaviour quite obviously. You can't describe natural animal behaviour as bizarre because it is normal. If it is natural it must be normal and if people see normal behaviour as bizarre and jerk-like then there is something wrong with them in my opinion.

I hate to say it but it's human behavior which can be unnatural and deviant. People who behave like this are the jerks.

How can cats see in the dark?

How can cats see in the dark? The answer is that they have a reflective layer behind the retina of the eyes which bounces back light into the eye, onto the retina, boosting the reception of the light. You can see this reflective layer on occasions when a light is shone into the eyes of a cat. It is noticeable at night when driving, if and when you see a cat looking towards you. The car lights are reflected in the eyes of the cat and you see this green, sharp glow-"cat's eyes". Cats have developed this in order to hunt more effectively at dawn and at dusk or during the night. It is an evolved anatomical development of the eye to improve survival. It is Darwin's survival of the fittest in action. This evolutionary development took place in the North African wild cat, the ancient wild ancestor of our beloved domestic cat.

How much are cats at petco?

How much are cats at Petco? People ask this question on the Internet. It is a bad question¹. People should be asking, "what's the best place to adopt a cat from?" And the answer will always be a rescue centre. That is the only place one needs to go to to adopt a cat and you will feel better about it because not only will you have adopted a cat for yourself but you will have probably saved the life of a cat. It's a win-win situation and when you adopt a cat from a rescue centre you do more than adopt a companion animal for your benefit, you will have benefited in a small way the entire population of unwanted domestic cats on the planet. It will have been a gift to the world. You'll feel better, so it will be a gift to you as well.

Note 1 - if Petco only have rescue cats then I am wrong ;)