With freckles and mascara, no wonder puss is cute

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Friday, 27July 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Cats can have freckles. They can appear anywhere on a cat's skin and even in its mouth.
• The dark lines connecting to a cat's eyes are called mascara lines.
• Cats with white fur and skin on their ears are very prone to sunburn.
• Cats can see up to 36 metres away. Their peripheral vision is about 285 degrees.
• Cats have 13 ribs.
• Cats have a third eyelid, called a haw, that is rarely visible. If it can be seen, it may be an indication of ill health.
• Cats have true fur, meaning that they have both an undercoat and an outer coat.
• Ear furnishings are the hairs that grow inside a cat's ears.
• In addition to using their noses, cats can smell with the Jacobson's organ, which is located in the upper surface of the mouth.
• A cat has approximately 60 to 80 million olfactory cells while a human has about five to 20 million.
• Cats are sometimes born with extra toes. This is called polydactyl.
• Cats can donate blood to other cats.
• Cats can have AB blood groups just like people.
• In relation to their body size, cats have the largest eyes of any mammal.
• A female cat can begin mating when she is between five and nine months old.
• A male cat can begin mating when he is between six and 10 months old.
• Young cats can distinguish between two identical sounds that are just 45 cm apart at a distance of up to 18 metres.
• Cats have a homing ability that uses its biological clock, the angle of the sun and the Earth's magnetic field.
• A 15-year-old cat has probably spent 10 years of its life sleeping.
• Cats must have fat in their diet, because they can't produce it on their own.
• In general, cats live longer than most dogs. An average life span might be 12 to 14 years. Some cats live 20 years or more. A cat's longevity depends on feeding, genetics, environment, veterinary care and other factors. It also depends on whether a cat lives indoors or is allowed outdoors (outdoor cats live an average of eight years).
• Neutering a cat extends its life span by two or three years.
• The average canned or dry cat meal is the nutritional equivalent of eating five mice.
• When you find your cat glued to a window intently watching a bird, making a strange chattering noise and clicking its jaws oddly, it is merely acting on instinct. What your cat is doing is directly related to the killing bite that all cats (both domestic and wild) use to dispatch their prey.
• You can tell a cat's mood by looking into its eyes. A frightened or excited cat will have large, round pupils. An angry cat will have narrow pupils. The pupil size is related as much to the cat's emotions as to the degree of light.