Do you ever see your cat perk up his adorable little satellite dish ears at seemingly nothing? Well, chances are likely it wasn’t ‘nothing’ at all – your cat probably heard something in a range way outside of what you can hear. Not only can your feline friend hear very quiet and high-pitched sounds, but he can pinpoint them with deadly accuracy.
While cats hear low-pitched sounds about as well as we do, they are far better than we are at picking up high-pitched sounds and squeaks. The highest-pitched noises humans can hear are about 20 kHz. A cat can hear sounds up to 65 kHz. That’s almost two octaves higher than you! That gives kitty the ability to hear a tiny squeak of a mouse or identify the little meow of her kitten.
Ready to put that hearing to the test? Make sure the volume on your phone, computer, or tablet is all the way up and then play this video. Can’t hear it, can you? Now bring your cat into the room and watch his or her ears perk up when you play it!
Did your cat react to the sound? Your cat’s ears, shaped like a satellite dish, can rotate 180 degrees. Did they perk up and swivel toward the sound when you pressed play? From up to three feet away, your amazing cat can determine a sound’s location with accuracy within inches in fractions of a second. Your little house-panther’s hunter brain is hardwired to detect the time delay in the arrival of a sound, allowing him to determine its location. Amazing, isn’t it?
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