The truly unique “two talking cats” video on YouTube has been seen 103 million times which is unsurprising. Or perhaps it might be fair to say that it’s unique to capture on video cats talking to themselves like this. It possibly happens from time to time but it must be extremely rare. But what …
There are two very well-known biologists and cat behaviourists who, in my view, agree on this point which is that the domestic cat sees us as surrogate mothers. We don’t quite know how they really process their observations of us but in terms of their behaviour towards us it reflects a kitten-to-mother relationship. These …
I, and many others, have said it before, individual domestic cats have their own way to deliver the classic meow. There are a million different ways and this is one the most charming that I have heard. I can think of another I loved which you can hear by clicking on this link. Here …
There is only one large wild cat species that can both purr and meow, and of course, produce a wide range of sounds both for short range and long-range communication and this is the well-known puma a.k.a. the mountain lion or cougar. This is the cat with the most names and the cat with …
If you compare the meow of the domestic cat’s wildcat ancestor to that of the domestic cat today you will notice a difference. Over 10,000 years of domestication the domestic cat meow has evolved to better communicate with human caregivers. And in response, humans have evolved as well in order to be more sensitive …
I am discussing words which describe the sounds that domestic and wild cats make and which are based on those sounds. An “onomatopoeia” is a word describing a sound and the word itself evokes the sound that it is describing. All the words used to label the sounds that wild and domestic cats make …
On the basis that the feline meow is quite a variable sound even among domestic cats, I think that we can say that sand cats do indeed meow but they produce their own version of it. It is interesting that the excellent reference book that I have on the wild cat species, Wild Cats …
Can cats have more melodic and beautiful meows than other cats? Yes, absolutely. Some cats, the Siamese comes to mind, have quite harsh and demanding meows. They are effective though! But this pretty cat has a sweet voice. If she was a person she’d have a signing voice! In fact there are meows of …
