A cat is a mammal that is highly adapted for hunting and is a crepuscular predator. It has a specialized digestive system, powerful jaws and teeth that function as shears to separate meat from bone. It can see six times better at night than humans and has a special adaptation – its eyes have a reflective layer called a tapetum lucidum, which helps it in dim light. It can also communicate with its mates and prey using body language and a variety of vocalizations including meowing, purring, trilling and growling. It also secretes and perceives pheromones, chemical signals used for communication.
A well-coordinated animal, cats can turn their head almost to any direction and have such a strong neck muscle that they can right themselves if they fall over – an instinctive behavior that even newborn kittens exhibit (Siegal 2004). They are able to stand on their hind legs for extended periods of time due to a flexible structure in the back vertebrae.
The cat is a familiar figure in nursery rhymes and stories such as Dick Whittington and his cat, and in the 20th century writers Theophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire paid it homage, as did English poet Rudyard Kipling and composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber with his popular stage production Cats. While it is not generally considered to be an emotional creature, like all mammals, cats feel fear and pleasure, and integrate these emotions into tactics for survival.