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Authors: Desmond Morris
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of the way in which cats kill their prey has revealed that there is a peculiar jaw movement employed to bring about an almost instantaneous death.
This is important to a feline predator because even the most timid of prey may lash out when actually seized, and it is vital for the cat to reduce as much as possible any risk of injury to itself from the sharp beak of a bird or the powerful teeth of a rodent. So there is no time to lose. After the initial pounce, in which the prey is pinioned by the strong claws of the killer's front feet, the cat quickly crunches down with its long canine teeth, aiming at the nape of the neck. With a rapid juddering movement of the jaws it inserts these canines into the neck, slipping them down between vertebrae to sever the spinal cord. This killing-bite immediately incapacitates the prey and it is an enactment of this special movement that the frustrated, window-gazing cat is performing, unable to control itself at the tantalizing view of the juicy little bird outside.
Incidentally, this killing-bite is guided by the indentation of the body outline of the prey – the indentation which occurs where the body joins the head in both small birds and small rodents. Some prey have developed a defensive tactic in which they hunch up their bodies to conceal this indentation and in this way make the cat miss its aim. If the trick works, the cat may bite its victim in part of the body which does not cause death, and on rare occasions the wounded prey may then be able to scrabble to safety if the cat relaxes for a moment, imagining that it has already dealt its lethal blow.
Why does a cat sway its head from side to side when staring at its prey?
When a cat is preparing to pounce on its prey it sometimes sways its head rhythmically from side to side. This is a device employed by many predators blessed with binocular vision. The head-sway is a method of checking the precise distance at which the prey is located. If you sway your own head from side to side you will see how, the closer an object is, the more it is displaced by the lateral movements. The cat does this to refine its judgment, because when the rapid pounce forward is made it must be inch-accurate or it will fail.
Why does a cat sometimes play with its prey before killing it?
Horrified cat-owners have often experienced the shock of finding their pet cats apparently torturing a mouse or small bird. The hunter, instead of delivering the killing-bite of which it is perfectly capable, indulges in a cruel game of either hit-and-chase or trap-and-release, as a result of which the petrified victim may actually die of shock before the final coup de grace can be delivered.
Why does the cat do it, when it is such an efficient killing machine?
To start with, this is not the behaviour of a wild cat. It is the act of a well-fed pet which has been starved of hunting activity as a consequence of the 'hygienic' environment in which it now lives – neat suburbs or well-kept villages where the rodent infestation has long since been dealt with by poison and human pest control agencies. For such a cat, the occasional catching of a little field mouse, or a small bird, is a great event. It cannot bear to end the chase, prolonging it as much as possible until the prey dies. The hunting drive is independent of the hunger drive as any cat-owner knows whose cat has chased off after a bird on the lawn immediately after filling its belly with canned cat food. Just as hunger increases without food, so the urge to hunt increases without access to prey. The pet cat over-reacts, and the prey suffers a slow death as a result.
On this basis, one would not expect feral cats which are living rough or farm cats employed as 'professional pest-controllers' to indulge in play with their half-dead prey. In most cases it is indeed absent, but some researchers have found that female farm cats do occasionally indulge in it. There is a special explanation in their
This is important to a feline predator because even the most timid of prey may lash out when actually seized, and it is vital for the cat to reduce as much as possible any risk of injury to itself from the sharp beak of a bird or the powerful teeth of a rodent. So there is no time to lose. After the initial pounce, in which the prey is pinioned by the strong claws of the killer's front feet, the cat quickly crunches down with its long canine teeth, aiming at the nape of the neck. With a rapid juddering movement of the jaws it inserts these canines into the neck, slipping them down between vertebrae to sever the spinal cord. This killing-bite immediately incapacitates the prey and it is an enactment of this special movement that the frustrated, window-gazing cat is performing, unable to control itself at the tantalizing view of the juicy little bird outside.
Incidentally, this killing-bite is guided by the indentation of the body outline of the prey – the indentation which occurs where the body joins the head in both small birds and small rodents. Some prey have developed a defensive tactic in which they hunch up their bodies to conceal this indentation and in this way make the cat miss its aim. If the trick works, the cat may bite its victim in part of the body which does not cause death, and on rare occasions the wounded prey may then be able to scrabble to safety if the cat relaxes for a moment, imagining that it has already dealt its lethal blow.
Why does a cat sway its head from side to side when staring at its prey?
When a cat is preparing to pounce on its prey it sometimes sways its head rhythmically from side to side. This is a device employed by many predators blessed with binocular vision. The head-sway is a method of checking the precise distance at which the prey is located. If you sway your own head from side to side you will see how, the closer an object is, the more it is displaced by the lateral movements. The cat does this to refine its judgment, because when the rapid pounce forward is made it must be inch-accurate or it will fail.
Why does a cat sometimes play with its prey before killing it?
Horrified cat-owners have often experienced the shock of finding their pet cats apparently torturing a mouse or small bird. The hunter, instead of delivering the killing-bite of which it is perfectly capable, indulges in a cruel game of either hit-and-chase or trap-and-release, as a result of which the petrified victim may actually die of shock before the final coup de grace can be delivered.
Why does the cat do it, when it is such an efficient killing machine?
To start with, this is not the behaviour of a wild cat. It is the act of a well-fed pet which has been starved of hunting activity as a consequence of the 'hygienic' environment in which it now lives – neat suburbs or well-kept villages where the rodent infestation has long since been dealt with by poison and human pest control agencies. For such a cat, the occasional catching of a little field mouse, or a small bird, is a great event. It cannot bear to end the chase, prolonging it as much as possible until the prey dies. The hunting drive is independent of the hunger drive as any cat-owner knows whose cat has chased off after a bird on the lawn immediately after filling its belly with canned cat food. Just as hunger increases without food, so the urge to hunt increases without access to prey. The pet cat over-reacts, and the prey suffers a slow death as a result.
On this basis, one would not expect feral cats which are living rough or farm cats employed as 'professional pest-controllers' to indulge in play with their half-dead prey. In most cases it is indeed absent, but some researchers have found that female farm cats do occasionally indulge in it. There is a special explanation in their
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