In truth, these cats were probably set up by their own owners. After all, even we look a little rough when someone catches us off guard with a camera. Cats are no different.
But a bad photo doesn’t change the fact that they’re wonderful, perfect creatures. Any cat owner will back that up without hesitation.
Most of the time, cats have something magnetic about them. There’s an effortlessness to the way they move and carry themselves that’s hard to look away from.
You could watch a cat stretch on a windowsill for five minutes and not get bored. So what is it about them that makes us feel that way?
A lot of it has to do with how their bodies are built. Dr. Lizzie Youens, a veterinary surgeon and writer, explains that cats evolved to be solitary hunters, which meant they had to be agile and flexible enough to do everything on their own.
From stalking prey to squeezing through tight spaces to grooming themselves in seemingly impossible positions, their entire body was designed for smooth, graceful movement.
It starts with the spine. Cats have 53 vertebrae, which is significantly more than the 33 we humans have. A big chunk of those extra bones sit in their long tails. Each vertebra is connected with elastic cushioning discs, which gives cats an almost unreal range of motion.
They can rotate their head and trunk nearly 180 degrees, meaning a cat can have its body facing one direction while its head points the other way. That kind of flexibility helps with hunting, but it also explains why they can twist mid-air without hurting themselves.
That same spinal elasticity is also what makes them surprisingly fast. When a cat sprints, it alternately stretches and flexes its body along the spine, which lengthens each stride dramatically.
At full speed, a single stride can cover up to three times their body length, pushing them to around 30 miles per hour. They can only keep that up in short bursts, though. Unlike dogs, cats aren’t built for running long distances.
Then there’s their sense of balance, which is something else entirely. Cats have a highly developed inner ear system that gives them what’s called a righting reflex. That’s the reason they almost always land on their feet.
Their long tails help with this too, acting as a counterbalance while they climb and jump. It all works together to make them look effortless even when they’re doing something physically impressive.
