When a cat falls, the upper body twists first.
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Cats possess a remarkable ability to adjust their bodies mid-fall, allowing them to land gracefully on their feet, a phenomenon known as the cat righting reflex.
According to Yasuo Higurashi from Yamaguchi University, the cat’s thoracic spine is especially flexible, providing the agility needed to rotate their body during a fall.
It’s widely understood that cats almost always land on their feet. When you drop a cat upside down, it instinctively twists its body to ensure a safe landing.
This impressive skill has puzzled scientists for over a century, leading to three primary theories about how cats achieve this feat.
The first theory suggests they use a propeller-like motion with their tails, turning their bodies in the opposite direction. However, Greg Barr, a physics author, notes that the tail isn’t crucial, as cats can accomplish this without it. His work, Falling Cats and Basic Physics, supports this observation.
The second theory, the bend-twist model, posits that cats bend their bodies at nearly right angles. This allows their front and back halves to rotate independently, enabling all four legs to align correctly upon landing.
The third model, referred to as tuck-and-turn, illustrates how cats first rotate their front half while extending their hind legs, then switch positions to ensure safe landing.
To explore feline behavior, Higurashi and his team conducted two experiments. The first involved assessing the spinal flexibility of five deceased cats, revealing that their thoracic spines can rotate three times more than their lumbar spines.
The researchers filmed high-speed videos of two adult cats falling from one meter, finding that the front half completes its rotation slightly faster than the rear.
According to Gbur, these experiments made him reconsider the significance of the tuck-and-turn model, suggesting a stronger reliance on the bending and twisting motions during a fall. His observations indicated that the front of a falling cat appears to orient itself before the back.
These models are not mutually exclusive, as Gbur emphasizes, pointing out that nature often employs complex and effective methods rather than simple solutions.
Interestingly, the study revealed a tendency for cats to rotate predominantly to the right when falling. While one cat consistently displayed this behavior, another did so six out of eight times. Gbur speculates that this may relate to the asymmetric arrangement of a cat’s internal organs, affecting their rotational preferences.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
