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When cats descend , they flip themselves rightside - up with ostensibly fiddling effort — which has complicate scientists for tenner . Our feline friends appear to dare the legal philosophy of purgative by reconfiguring themselves mid - air without intervention from another forcefulness . So how do they do it ?
Several factor move how acatis able to land on all fours , but only put , there are two main forces at play : physics and neurology .
A cat has several ways of contorting its body during a fall to land on its paws.
" One of the reasons that physicists were surprised that quat could rotate to always land on their groundwork is the conservation of angulate momentum,“Greg Gbur , a physicist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte , told Live Science .
Essentially , this intend that if something twists clockwise , something else has to twist counterclockwise . Imagine a cat falling from a stationary upside - down posture . By bow at the waist , the Caterpillar can twist the front one-half of its body in one direction and the back one-half in the opposite commission . By the time it stretch at the waistline , the cat is rightside - up . Gbur dubbed this the " bend and twist " model in his Holy Writ , " Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics " ( Yale University Press , 2019 ) .
Butthere are other techniquesthat can aid cats right themselves mid - tune , and it ’s likely they employ more than one . In the " rapier and turn " method , a cat extend its front leg and tucks in its back leg , collapse the backside a lower minute of inertia , meaning a lower amount of resistance to changes in rotational motion . Then , it does the opposite , tucking in its front leg and extending the hind legs . It has an effect similar to aspinning figure skater : gallop the arm out wide increases the second of inactivity , while drawing the arms closemouthed to the body decreases it . This reciprocally correlate with speed . As inertia goes up , speed sound down , and vice - versa . Cats can also apply what Gbur calls " the propeller tail , " which cultivate likewise . As the posterior spin in one counseling , the body can revolve in the other .
A cat has several ways of contorting its body during a fall to land on its paws.
Related : Can cats really see in the dark ?
Such contortions are potential thanks to cats ' flexible lumbar region — the blank between their pelvis and ribcage — John Hutchinson , a prof of evolutionary biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London , severalize Live Science . Cats have skinny vertebrae , which makes them more flexible than other four - legged vertebrate .
This power to set down on all fours also has a neuroanatomical explanation : the righting reflex or response . Unlike a unproblematic innate reflex , like a knee tug , righting in animals is a complex reflex , meaning it ’s tied to the witting brain , Gbur allege .
Righting is a behavioural response to soberness that relies on the vestibular system , whichcontrols Libra . Semicircular canalsand sensors calledotolithsin a cat ’s inner spike detect changes in its acceleration and position comparative to the ground , prompting its muscleman to move in a way that helps it down on its paws . Interestingly , experimentation in the 1950s show that this righting response is n’t simply grain in cats from giving birth . When adult cats and new-sprung kitty wereflown on jets in zero - somberness conditions , the kittens were n’t able-bodied to compensate themselves but the adult cats did . Because otoliths are made of dense os , it ’s potential that they need to develop fully before an beast can properly right itself , Hutchinson take note , but scientist are n’t wholly sure .
However , the pinnacle of the free fall also matter . Studieshave shownthat computed axial tomography land with less wallop when they fall from high than the seventh floor , for example , than lower heights . This is mostly because of air resistance , which slows the big cat ’s organic structure enough to allow it to bend . Further , cats are improbable to turn the right way from less than 1 or 2 feet ( 0.3 to 0.6 meters ) , harmonise to inquiry published inAnnals of Improbable Research . ( It isnot safefor cat owner to by choice cast off their cats to test their righting reception ; they can get hurt , especiallyif they have a vestibular disease . )
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Righting responsesaren’t uniqueto domesticated CAT . Many wild cats exhibit the same behavior , as doratsandrabbits . For cats , the most plausibleevolutionaryexplanation is their inclination to climb tree and other spots mellow off the ground . For rabbits , predation is a probable evolutionary military force . As a hawk slide toward a rabbit horizontally , for representative , the rabbit will leap up vertically , causing the hawk to fumble for the rabbit , knock it off its linear path . Thus , the rabbit evolved a manner to set ashore good and whole .
For a behavior scientist once think of only as an instinct for many years , Gbur allege that multiple technique can be the answer .
" We have it sort of build up into our DNA to look for the simplest solution to a job , but nature just cares about the most effectual root , " he said . " Anything that gets it on its feet faster is better . "
