• Question: why do cats land on there feeet when they fall

    Asked by elizabethlee to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Great question! Cats have this amazing ability to be able to turn in the air, like I just to do when I was diving, and I would twist in the air starting with my arms! Cats turn their front legs over first, and then whip their back ends around! Cats are able to do this because they have an unusually flexible backbones and no functional clavicle (collarbone). Check this out for details! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_righting_reflex

      You know what else is cool?! How cats drink! Check out this video: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/student-voices/fluid_dynamics_from_felis_catus

    • Photo: Ashley Cadby

      Ashley Cadby answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      Cats lad on their feet because of the heights they fall from. If you drop a cat from a very tall building it dies and no one thinks about it landing on its feet. If you drop it from a small height it walks away and no one notices. However,if you drop it from a medium building it breaks its legs an you haven’t take it to the vet so people say are a cat fell forma height and landed on its feet. The question you want to ask is what happens if you put some buttered toast on its back, becaus toast is also only supposed to land buttered side down. So if the cat had buttered toast on its back the toast would stop the cat landing on its feet, so the cat toast thing would just spin around for ever.

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