At-home experiments shed light on cats’ liquid behavior | Cats fluidly move through tall and narrow nooks but hesitate when they approach uncomfortably short holes. The finding suggests that cats are aware of their own body sizes and may form mental images of themselves.
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>Thirty out of 38 cats finished the experiment. When faced with holes of varying height, 22 cats hesitated to crawl through the shortest, an analysis of the recordings revealed. When the holes varied in width, only eight cats paused before approaching the narrowest cranny. Most cats squeezed through slim openings without hesitating. The team calls this strategy trial-and-error: Regardless of whether the cats fit or not, they tried to flow through.
Read [more here](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/home-experiments-cats-liquid-behavior) and the [research article here. ](https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-0042%2824%2902024-8)
If they are aware of their sizes then why do fat kitties get stuck on their plump ends going through holes? I always thought their whiskers was how they could determine if they could enter or not.
It’s uncanny. Anecdotally, one of my cats like to lay in front of the fridge in such a way that the door glides above his legs and stomach while the corner barely grazes the fur on his shoulders and head. I’ve never witnessed him “practicing” getting into place when the door was open, so it appears he just has fantastic spatial and bodily awareness.
I’m low key laughing at one of my childhood cats that got stuck in a fence and the neighbor to take it apart. My cats now seem to have it together.
One of my cats would try to sit inside a kleenex box that was half her size. She’s definitely not represented in this study.
Did we think cats didnt have proprioception?