Aug 20
Its hearing is the first sense that alerts the cat to potential prey when it is out hunting and, due to its genetic inheritance, the sounds that are most likely to signal the proximity of rodents, its favourite meal, are the ones to which it is the most attuned. And because rodents utter high- pitched squeaks, the upper frequencies of the sound range are those that the cat’s ears are especially adept at detecting, exceeding both dogs and humans in their sensitivity. Indeed, when you think that our detection of acoustic vibrations rises to around 20,000 hertz, and a cat’s to 50,000, we must be deaf to a cacophony of interesting sounds. (more…)
