Could you identify your cat in a police lineup, identity parade? I could because my cat has three legs. Fine. But could you, for sure, with absolute certainty identify your cat if 8 other very similar cats were lined up with him/her?
I ask because there is a nice story about a woman in England who let her black cat roam. One day she was told he had been run over. She dashed out, scooped his body up off the road and buried him in her garden with a ceremony and headstone.
Next day her black cat turned up for breakfast. The first thing she did was to check the grave to see if he had risen from the dead.
Seeing that he had not, she realised she had buried someone else’s cat.
The point is, she did not distinguish her cat from the dead cat on the road. The dead black cat was the same size, shape, colour and had the same face, she says. The face seems to be key but are they similar fairly often?
I think black cats can be particularly difficult to identify because there are no identifying coat markings.
The interesting thing for me is, could we recognise our cat’s facial features if our cat was in a police line up? My black cat has a long, Siamese face so even if he had four legs I would hope to be able to identify him but I could not 100% guarantee it, I feel. I don’t know, perhaps I could. I feel, however, a lot of people could not identify their cat in an ID parade. The voice is an important identifier but for the purposes of this test that characteristic is excluded.
By contrast, I could guarantee identifying any person who I had lived with for a long time. There is no question about that.
If it is harder to identify a cat from appearance, the question is, “Why?” The answer must be because cat appearance is less distinct between individual cats than human appearance. The same could be claimed for dogs and other animals. What about parrots for example? Or goldfish. I bet you could not identify your goldfish in a police lineup 😉
So what does that tell us? It is probable that cats do have fine facial distinctions that are as distinct as humans but they are covered by fur. Secondly, people don’t pay quite so much attention observing a cat’s facial features. We don’t, after all, observe a cat’s expressions as we do a human’s expressions to gauge body language.
Perhaps cats do not have such an evolved face in terms of it being a means of communication through expressions because they rely a lot more on smell to identify another cat. I feel that is the answer. Cats identify cats through scent and therefore the face has not evolved to be so distinct.
Of course microchip identifications or ear tattoo identifications solve the problem. These are still relatively rare, aren’t they?
I can answer this question definitively now. The answer is no, I would not be able to pick Monty out of a lineup. I found this out today.
This morning I looked up while putting on my shoes on the back porch to see Monty standing in the back of the yard. He was a little puffy and seemed to be looking out across the yard. Maybe it’s a possum. I was trying to figure out exactly what he was doing. There was something odd about his body, or his posture, but what was it? I called out to him. Suddenly, he had two heads. The small, black furry face that had been looking at me was not his. There was another black cat siting there, slightly smaller than Monty, but otherwise his twin. I think the other cat could be related to Monty. There are a lot of black cats around here that look like him. His kitty mom was, well, prolific.
Barefoot I ran across the yard and the smaller cat ran, scrambling over the fence. Monty gave chase. I yelled, “No!” but one cat dropped down, and came back into my yard. I walked by him and he attacked my ankle. “Don’t attack your mom!” I said. The cat kept yowling, howling and growling. He was completely wild. Unapproachable. I tried talking soothingly to him, but he appeared defensive.
A thought that had been nagging me suddenly came front and center. Not only were these both black cats they were two black cats probably sharing a great deal of genetic material. Look alike black cats, except for size. Size is relative, comparative. What if Monty were the smaller cat? What if my cat has been chased over the fence and I’m sitting here with a feral cat who could never love me, a wild animal, larger and more fierce than Monty? Isn’t the tail shorter on this cat? Is that Monty’s face? Monty is such sweet cat– this cat is wild. It’s not him. My cat ran over the fence!
I ran through the house and into the neighboring yard. I called out, “Monty,” and suddenly he was there, peeking at me through a gap in the fence. The little face peeking at me from my own yard was Monty’s. I ran back through the house and into the yard and there was Monty walking up the path, as is his habit, except his tail was down. I picked him up. He was excited, but I could hold him. It was definitely him.
“I didn’t know who you were! I thought you weren’t you!” Monty looked at me like I was incredibly stupid. But he wasn’t himself– for awhile he was out of his little head, a totally wild cat and the relationship we have, in that moment, did not exist. He was a stranger in a sense. Over time he calmed down and the wild kitty left him and then I wondered how I could have doubted.
I you visit a shelter looking for your missing cat it could be hard I recognize him if he were stressed. Also, this was a reminder that at heart Monty is still a wild cat. But he is also my furry friend and he did remember that finally, and when he did I recognized him without difficulty.
Boy. You can just imagine. I still keep one of those flyers in which he has the wrong (opaque) eye sharpied. Maybe I will mat and frame it one of these days 🙂