Brief synopsis of a conversation my husband and I had with our roommates multiple times:
“Hey please don’t let our cats outside, they’re idiots who will run away.”
“So what you’re saying is we can keep letting your cats outside?”
And scene.
Anyway. One of my cats is missing. So I’m doing the only thing I know how to do: trying to calm myself down with science.
Today’s Moment of Science… how Fluffy finds their way home.
If your cat takes a dart out the door at a particularly juicy looking opossum, in most cases when they make it home, it’s not through the work of plastering the neighborhood with “we lost our baby schnookums plz halp” signs. Most of the time they just kinda show up, having had their little adventure, a tad confused about why you’re hugging them and yelling at them at the same time.
So how does your cat, who still occasionally seems surprised by the existence of their own tail, sometimes seem to have better internal GPS than your iPhone?
Though scientists believe cats have a homing instinct of some sort, they’re still kinda “uh LOOK OVER THERE” if you ask for a definite answer on how it works. Only a couple of studies have come out on it, the two most heavily referenced ones are from 1922 and 1954. You know, when we were super good at sciencing.
In one study, they decided to take a mother cat, drive her several miles away from home, and just see what happened. Much science, many ethics. In seven out of eight cases, each time dropped off within five miles, the cat headed directly home, because fuck this shit, she had kittens to tend to. On their eighth journey, she was anesthetized before leaving, dropped over sixteen miles away, and didn’t make it home.
I’m not quite sure what the ethics are of “let’s just leave this cat who’s hunting for her kitten somewhere and hope it works out”, but I guess it’s fine if you add “for science” to just about anything.
The study demonstrated that cats generally had a sense of direction in finding their way home. And also that humans suck.
In the 1954 study cats were placed in a maze with six exits. They were a distance of about five kilometers away from the cats homes, and in 60% of tests, cats went to the door that was closest to their homes.
So… how the fuck?
A common way we know of that animals navigate is magnetoreception. The TL;DR explanation is that they’ve got somewhat of a biological compass tapped into the planet’s magnetic north and south poles. Pigeons, bats, mice, mole rats, fruit flies, toads, turtles, and a slew of other animals utilize this through various means, some of which are better understood than others.
Though it’s been proposed that cats are “highly sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field,” we’re not sure what mechanism causes this or how consistent it is from one cat to the next. We’re actually not even sure if cats have any form of magnetoreception. That was a quote from a 1977 book that appeared to derive its conclusions from the previous two studies I mentioned. Though it feels probable that they’re right, we try not to base our ideas in science on feelings.
We know that cats have a vivid sense of smell going for them. If Fluffy runs away from home, they likely left a urinary trail of breadcrumbs to help them sniff their way back. That doesn’t explain how, every once in a while, you hear about a cat getting lost on a trip and walking 200 miles back home.
Though it seems likely that they’ve got magnetoreception going for them, we certainly haven’t identified whatever mechanism is behind it.
I really hope my little science cat, Oliver, has a bio-compass guiding him back here. He’s microchipped, and his microchip has been registered. If you have a dog or cat, please make sure they’re microchipped. It’s one of the best ways you can ensure that your animal will be safely returned to you if they’re found.
This has been your daily Moment of Science, reminding you that if you have roommates and animals, be really fucking explicit when you tell them that the cats are indoor cats.
To support my efforts in fact checking the internet and help pay for the therapy bill my menagerie is giving me, head to patreon.com/scibabe.
Here’s a video of Oliver fetching. He’s a great cat.
They say…..put your cat’s litter box outside. It helps them find their way home.
Doc ast me if I wanted a “we can watch your vitals for you while you do important stuff like mowing the yard and snarfing chicken wings microchip” and I told him, “No.” But I did ask him if he could microchip me so I could speak Spanich. He looked at me goofy and didn’t say nothing. So I have no microchip. I’ve not had time to consult with Fauci: have I mist something? Good post. Kick your roomies out; they’re inconsiderate idjits.
One thing I learned after five decades living with cats: when they go missing outdoors they are quite often hunkered down in silence within 50 feet or so of home. Rather than searching far and wide, try walking around the house calling then listening for quiet little “meow sssh there are monsters out here” responses.
Another thing — cats can learn to come running when they hear the click of a can opener breaking into a can of cat food or tuna. And once so trained they’ll even come running toward the sound of an empty can being can-openered.