I was in Ocean City for Senior Week in high school and as I was sitting on the balcony with a friend, we noticed a cat across the way outside another building just sitting on the railing. My first thought was this cat is going to fall if it makes one false move, but my friend assured me that the cat will be fine if it falls since it will land on it’s feet. He said that all cats were like that. This got me thinking, is it really true that cats land on their feet every time? According to veterinarians, most cats will be fine and end up landing on their feet if falling from much greater  heights as opposed to shorter drops. This is because a cat has more time to figure out that it needs to extend it’s legs to land properly. The cat follows a system of what to do in a situation like this. A cat figures out that it is going down instead of up, therefore begins to position it’s body to prepare for what’s to come. Once this is determined, they adjust their backs in an arch-like manner, stick out their front feet followed by the back ones which is then brought in under it’s stomach, and raised their paws to protect their faces once they hit the ground.

The reason why they are able to do this without significant injury, stems from them having 30 vertebrae as opposed to humans who only have 24. This gives them much more flexibility in instances where they need to reposition their bodies, especially from harmful situations. This same article, also mentions that cats didn’t learn this behavior, rather picked it up through the evolutionary stages of nature. A kitten usually starts figuring out it’s body’s mechanism when it is six weeks old allowing much time to understand what happens when they are running or jumping and how the body will react.

According to a researcher in Milano, Italy named Fiorella Gambale, Ph.D. for the Institute for Feline Research, she conducted a study in which a cat would be dropped at different heights to see if they would land at that height. She started from six feet high, then five feet, etc. From a height of six to two feet the cat landed all 100 times. When the cat was dropped from a mere height of one foot, it could not land on it’s feet all 100 times. Supporting the assertion that when met with shorter heights of drop, the cat is unable to realign itself to get ready for what’s to come.

Sources:

http://www.animalplanet.com/pets/why-do-cats-land-on-their-feet/

http://www.chicagonow.com/steve-dales-pet-world/2012/03/cats-dont-always-land-on-their-feet/

http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume4/v4i4/catfeet.htm