Cat Facts to Share with Your Friends

In honor of Cat Lover’s Month, enjoy these fun facts sure to make your day.

  1. Cats spend 70% of their lives sleeping, or 16-20 hours a day. Many experts attribute this to their wild instincts. If they want to be a successful predator and catch dinner, they must be well rested!
  2. For over 15 years, Stubbs the cat was the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, a small town with less than 1,000 residents. Stubbs was quite adventurous, from hitching a ride on a garbage truck to falling into a cold fryer vat (he survived both exploits).
  3. Garfield, that orange, lasagna-loving feline we all know, is called Gustav in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
  4. Having a cat in the house is good for you. It’s true! Not only are cats linked to lower stress levels in their owners, they also help people sleep better and combat loneliness.
  5. A group of kittens is called a “kindle.” Yes, really. A group of cats is called a “clowder,” a “cluster,” a “glaring,” and more.
  6. Blackie, the world’s richest cat, inherited $13 million when his owner passed away in 1988. The owner, an antiques dealer from the UK named Ben Rea, refused to leave anything to the human members of his family.
  7. The oldest cat video on YouTube features two cats boxing in a ring. This short, strange movie was created in 1894!
  8. A cat’s brain stores 1,000 times more data than an iPad.
  9. Cats have us wrapped around their little paws. Using a series of meows, they can manipulate us into waking up in the morning or even getting them something to eat. Crafty little devils, aren’t they?
  10. In 2012, a cat named Fidge alerted her owner to a potentially fatal cancerous lump in her chest, saving her life. Just six years before, another cat named Oscar “predicted” the deaths of retirement home residents.
  11. Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great may have suffered from ailurophobia, also known as a fear of cats.
  12. A cat’s nose pad is as unique as a human fingerprint.
  13. 1% of American homes with a pet have at least one cat (dogs come out on top at 60.2%, followed by freshwater fish at 12.5%).