I saw a quote online recently by Maurice Burton that said "Anyone who claims that a cat cannot give a dirty look has either never kept a cat or is singularly unobservant." I admit that I've gotten my share of dirty looks from my cats, and it made me think about cat facial expressions. What other kinds of cat face expressions are there, and how can we identify them? Let's look more into facial expressions of cats!
How many facial expressions do cats have?
A study in the journal Behavourial Processes, published by researchers Lauren Scott and Brittany N. Florkiewicz looked at recordings of cats in a cat cafe to see what facial expressions they used to communicate with each other after the cafe had closed for the day. They identified 276 different cat expressions made up of 26 different facial movements. Some of the facial movements used by cats included moving their mouths, ears, whiskers, as well as eye blinks and nose licks. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, 126 of those movements, or about 45%, were categorized as friendly. 37% of the cat faces made were categorized as aggressive, while 18% were more ambiguous, inviting more research into cat expressions.
Humans have been found to make 44 different facial movements, although I have not found how many different unique expressions humans form with those 44 movements. One expression that seems to be similar across species is what the researchers called a "common play face." A playful face is expressed by cats, dogs, humans and monkeys all in a similar way - with the corners of the mouth drawn back and jaw dropped according to Live Science.
Other patterns that were found when studying cat facial expressions according to the Smithsonian article, is that cats tend to move their ears and whiskers closer to each other when being friendly, but push their ears and whiskers back away from each other when feeling unfriendly. When unfriendliness turns toward hostility, the cat face tends to have the ears flattened and pupils dilated.
A common cat facial expression is the "slow blink" where cats slowly close their eyes and open them again. It's an expression of relaxation and some even call it a cat kiss! Getthatright.com also mentions some other cat emotions expressed through blinking. They say excessive blinking is a sign that your cat is scared, so if you notice that, it's a good sign to try to remove whatever is making your cat fearful and try to help them relax again.
Another cat expression mentioned by getthatright.com is head tilting. They say a relaxed cat will tilt their head to the right to signify contentment. They also say cats will not tilt their head to the left when relaxed, so if you see your cat tilt their head to the left, it's because they are looking for something. I'll have to watch my cats expressions to see if that one rings true!
Curiousity is another cat emotion that is expressed with their faces. Getthatright.com says a curious cat face will have their eyes focused on their object of their curiosity, whiskers forward and ears up. If your cat is curious about something, especially about something that could be fun to play with this could be a good time to play with your cat, and maybe you can both put on your "common play face"!
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