There are not so many animals in nature about which everything seems to be known, they have been close to humans for millions of years, but still remain a mystery. These are cats.

 1. During the pursuit of prey, the cat keeps its head horizontally at the same level, while dogs and people shake their heads up and down.

2. Cats are mostly right-handed, and cats are mostly left-handed. An interesting fact is that 90% of people are right-handed, and the remaining 10% are left-handed, and they are mostly men.

3. A cat cannot climb down a tree upside down, because all the claws on its paws are directed in one direction. So the cats have to climb down the tree backwards.

4. Scientists believe that a cat can pronounce consonant sounds: m, n, g, x, f, v.

5. Cats can make up to 100 different sounds, while dogs only make 10.

6. The brain of a cat, unlike a dog, is more like a human brain. Cats and humans have identical areas of the brain that are responsible for emotions.

7. During the Spanish Inquisition, Pope Innocent VIII recognized cats as the incarnation of the devil and thousands of cats were burned. This led to an increase in the population of rats, which exacerbated the effects of the plague, nicknamed the "black death". Did the cat god take revenge?

8. According to legend, Noah prayed to God to help protect all the food in the ark from rats. In response, God caused the cat to appear when the lion sneezed.

9. In Siam, when the coronation of a new king was held, the cats rode in a carriage, being at the head of the procession.

10. For short distances, a cat can reach speeds of about 49 km/h.

11. A cat can jump up to five times its height.

12. Cats almost always land on their paws: the organs of balance are located in the inner ear of the cat, and the tail also helps to align the trajectory.

13. Cats rub against people not only because they are affectionate, but also to mark their territory with scent glands located around their muzzle.

14. Scientists are still debating exactly how a cat purrs. Most believe that the vibration of the vocal cords, located deep in the throat. To do this, the muscles of the larynx open and close the air corridor about 25 times per second.

15. When a cat died in a family in ancient Egypt, family members shaved their eyebrows as a sign of grief. The cat was embalmed, the mummy was placed in the family crypt or in the animal cemetery along with the mouse mummies. In 1888, over 300,000 mummified cats were found in Egyptian cemeteries.

16. The earliest ancestor of the modern cat lived about 30 million years ago.

17. A cat usually has 12 whiskers on each side.

18. The ability of cats to find their way home is explained by the fact that cats either use the angle of sunlight, or they have magnetized cells in the brain that act as a compass.

19. A cat's jaw can't move sideways, so they can't chew large chunks of food.

20. The back of a cat consists of 53 vertebrae. A person has only 34 of them.

21. A third of cat owners think their pets can read their minds.

22. The most famous long-lived cat was Puff from Texas, who died in 2005 at the age of 38. Ordinary cats can live up to 20 years (approximately 96 human years).

23. A cat's nose has a unique fingerprint, just like human fingerprints.

24. Cats can detect an earthquake 10-15 minutes before a human feels it.

25. 95 percent of their owners talk to their cats.

26. Cats are aliens. Even some scientists believe this. In their opinion, the main task of cats is to observe creatures on Earth, and the proof of their alien origin is amazing abilities that other animals do not have.