A little while ago I was looking into the saying that cats have 9 lives, and saw that one of the reasons for that saying is that cats have a remarkable ability to land on their feet and survive falls from great heights. But, do cats ALWAYS land on their feet? And how do cats land on their feet?
Do cats always land on their feet?
Cats have remarkable agility and instincts to right themselves when falling, but no, they aren't always able to land on their feet. According to diamondpet.com, the height of the fall comes into play. They cite a study from the July–August 1998 issue of Annals of Improbable Research where an Italian researcher tried to figure out how much room a cat needed to be able to turn themselves to land feet first. The cat he tested was able to always land on their feet from a height of 2 to 6 feet, but from only 1 foot, they didn't have enough time to get all 4 feet under them.
There is another factor as well that determines whether a cat can land on their feet, and that is the age and condition of the cat. Diamondpet.com goes on to say that an overweight cat, or one that has arthritis or maybe is just clumsy might not have enough time to turn themselves in the air, and could land on their side, or even on their back or head, which could cause serious injuries, so we don't recommend experimenting with dropping your cat!
OK, we've established that cats don't always land on their feet, but as I mentioned at the beginning, they are agile and very often are able to land feet-first.
So, how do cats land on their feet?
Purina.co.uk says a French scientist named Etienne-Jules Marey was able to take an image of a cat falling in 1894. The cat was held feet up and started falling with their back to the ground, but then was able to rotate in the air so that they landed on their feet!
ScientificAmerican.com says this was a big puzzle for physicists because it seemed to go against the "conservation of angular momentum", which says that it is impossible for an object that is not spinning to suddenly start spinning without something else acting on it.
So, do cats break the laws of physics with their ability to land on their feet?
As it turns out, no. After all, cats aren't just soda bottles being dropped, they are living creatures, and ones that come from a long line of climbers, so they have some pretty specialized adaptations to help them land on their feet - literally.
Cats have what is known as a righting reflex which is triggered when a cat finds themsleves no longer in contact with something solid beneath them. Diamondpet.com says that the cat righting reflex starts to develop at 3 weeks old, and is highly developed by 7 weeks. So, add that to the list of reasons why a cat might not land on their feet - tiny kittens probably haven't developed their righting reflex yet.
Catbandit.com mentions the vestibular system as one adaptation that cats have to land on their feet. This is a system of nerves and organs in the inner ear that is responsible for keeping balance and sensing where you are in space. The cat cat vestibular system is so well tuned that they can detect any changes to the angle at which they are falling so that they can turn their bodies to compensate.
But, how does a cat turn in mid-air?
Diamondpet.com explains that cats have a skeleton that includes a long flexible spine, and that their collarbones and shoulder blades are connected to their bodies by muscles instead of bones. All of this makes them very good at twisting, which is what is needed to right themselves in the air. They get the information from the vestibular system and first turn their head. Then they use that super flexible spine so that the front legs and back legs are going in opposite directions. Then they tuck their front legs in, and stretch out their back legs. ScientificAmerican notes that this decreases their moment of inertia for the front of the body and increases it in the back, so that the front end spins more quickly than the back. Once the front end is facing the ground, the cat reverses that action by tucking in their back legs and spreading out the front legs to get the back legs oriented toward the ground too! Once all the legs are in the right position, all 4 feet are used to absorb the impact and the cat simply walks away.
And ScientificAmerican.com says that cats can simply walk away from (or at least survive) a fall from nearly any height! They mention a study from the 1980s where 2 veterinarians in New York City kept track of cats who had fallen from high rise buildings - one as high as the 32nd floor - and 90% of the cats survived. They said that the damage done to cats from falls increased up to about the 7th story, and then seemed to decrease. The math looks pretty complicated, but they say that air resistance plays a part in it and that at a certain speed, a falling feline will no longer speed up due to the air resistance. So, those cats falling from higher floors land at around the same speed as those falling smaller distances. But they note that that doesn't quite explain why the cats falling from the 6th floor seemed to have greater injuries than those falling from higher heights. There are 2 guesses for why this might be. One is that when a cat is falling from a longer distance, they have time to relax and don't land so stiff legged, thus lessening their chance for injury. The other is a little more sobering - and that is if a cat dies from the higher fall, the owner didn't bother taking it to the vet, since they knew it was dead, and so the study is missing those cases.
So, while cats are agile and have a remarkable righting reflex, they don't always land on their feet, so it's best to keep your cat away from high windows or balconies when you can. However, as we know, cats are curious, and have a mind of their own, so if your cat does bust through the screen chasing a bird or topple from the balcony, it's important to watch for signs of injury. If your cat is limping or hesitant to move, that is a sign that something hurts. Cats are good at hiding pain though and there could be internal injuries, so even if they seem ok, it is probably a good idea to have a vet check it out if your cat has taken a fall - especially if they didn't quite land on their feet!
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