• Question: why do cats always land on their feet?

    Asked by kayleigh99 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 18 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by emily148, meg123.
    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      Hi again Kayleigh!

      Cats have evolved to be able to fall off trees unharmed – those that couldn’t do it died out!
      Here’s a brilliant video by national georgaphic about the science of cats falling. Thanks for getting me to find it, I love it! Just ignore the advert at the start.

      http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/animals/mammals-animals/cats/cats_domestic_ninelives/

      🙂
      Sarah

    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      Hi kayleigh99, great question!

      Well they usually can land on their feet, but not always!

      This is called the feline righting reflex, and it is possible because they have very flexible backbones and their collarbone is not attached to their shoulder joints so they are able to twist and bend more than we can. They use their vestibular system (which is how they can tell if they are facing up or down) to work out how to orient themselves so they will land feet first and then twist their body around so that their feet are facing down.
      If they are falling from a great height, they will also spread their legs to create a kind of parachute effect, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t hurt themselves!

      Check this video out which shows this happening in slow motion – but I wouldn’t try it with a pet cat, I don’t think they would be very happy about being dropped and you could still hurt them.

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