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13 Surprising Scientific Facts About Pets

There’s a whole world of flavors your cat will never know.

13 Surprising Scientific Facts About Pets

April 16, 2021

Science has quite a lot to say about your pet that you might have had no idea about. No, really. It turns out the animals that live with us are, in some ways, as odd and little-understood as any. Here are 15 examples of what we mean:

13

Cats have a much more limited sense of taste than humans. Humans have over 9000 taste buds, but cats only have a couple of hundred - which means they can't taste, say, sweet flavors. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Purina

12

The skin and fat on a cat's belly is called the primordial pouch. oue It has a survival function - when cats stand on their front legs and kick their enemy in a fight, that skin and fat protects their organs. NOW YOU KNOW — Source: Yahoo

11

Cat Bellies

Cats usually don't have spots on their belly because the right cells don't reproduce enough. The cells responsible for the different-colored pigment migrate to the belly, but they don't make enough copies of themselves to cover a large area. NOW YOU KNOW — Source: Reuters

10

The surface area of a cat's pupil can change almost 10 times more than a human's pupil. A cat's can change by a factor of 135, but a human's can only change by a factor of 15 -- the higher that factor, the more control over the amount of light entering — Source: The Conversationa

9

Dogs evolved the ability to process carbs SO they could live with humans. Three genes involved in the digestion of starch are different between wolves and dogs -- which would have helped dogs live off of agricultural products, just like humans did. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: NPR

8

Wolves, unlike dogs, won't try to get human help to solve a problem. In a study that involved both dogs and wolves raised by humans, when help from humans was needed to get food, the dogs turned to humans - but the wolves rarely did. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Scientific American

7

Dog fleas jump much higher than cat fleas. 27% In one study, dog fleas jumped about 50% higher than cat fleas on average. NOW YOU KNOW — Source: NIH

6

Hypoallergenic dog breeds Fi don't exist. 27% Allergic reactions are usually caused by proteins in the urine and saliva of dogs and cats, not their fur. NOW YOU KNOW — Source: Mayo Clinic

5

Dogs can smell when you're having an epileptic seizure. lit And they're very good at it, too-. - they can smell, say, diabetes and cancer, too, but they're particularly good at smelling epileptic seizures. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Nature

4

Puppy-dog eyes are a real thing, and have been produced by evolution. Because dogs have been living with humans for SO long, they've evolved small muscles around their eyes that let them make expressions that are appealing to humans. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: BBC

3

Onions are poisonous to cats and dogs. They contain organosulfoxides, which are converted into a mixture of sulfur compounds by chewing, and those sulfur compounds break down cats' and dogs' red blood cells. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED COM — Source: LiveScience

2

Cats walk around in a circle before they lie down SO they can detect predators better. It's a remnant of their days in the wild -- they'd walk around to find the best place to detect the scent of any threat coming downwind. NOW YOU KNOW — Source: VCA Hospitals

1

Any given tortoiseshell cat is almost certainly female. Only 1 in 3,000 is male - those cats are the product of a genetic mutation, and are usually sterile. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Good Housekeeping

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