flossy or bare . Long or curt . Crooked or straight . White or gray-haired . unanimous or spotted . Many aspects of your cat ’s tail are beyond their control . But according to Laura Moon , DVM , ofGreen Hills Veterinary Clinicin Moberly , Mo. , how it moves is n’t one of them .
We ask Moon to begin at the end ( of cats , that is ) and help oneself explicate the movement behind these perplexing appendages , including how cats control their tails and whether guy have feeling in their tails .
Do Cats Control Their Tails?
Healthy cats with normal anatomy and physiology are able to control their tails from the fundament to the crest and know how to do so instinctually , Moon explain . Being able to move their tails is an important part of how big cat maintain their balance wheel andhow they express themselves nonverbally . But despite their significance in casual life , Moon mention that computed tomography who are born without rear end or who recede them to combat injury can do just o.k. without them .
How Do Cats Control Their Tails?
computed tomography nates can seem somewhat mysterious . ( After all , we ca n’t on the dot draw from personal experience . ) However , under all of that frivolity , you ’ll determine a organisation that is n’t all that dissimilar to what ease up our own appendages organize and function .
Cat Tail Anatomy
Your cat ’s tail is actually part of their spinal column . The backbone consists of five distinct regions of vertebrae — cervical , thoracic , lumbar , sacral , and caudal — that twain from the neck to the tip of the tail . A distinctive cat tail contains between 18 and 23 caudal vertebra that bit by bit decrease in size from the al-Qaeda to the lead . And because the average African tea has a totality of 230 off-white , this means roughly 10 % of your kitty ’s bones are found in their tail .
In addition to these osseous tissue , Moon say your cat ’s hind end take connective tissue paper ( ligaments and tendons ) , muscle , blood vessels , skin , and fur . And while the spinal cord does n’t extend into the vertebrae of the fanny , the buns is home to a system of brass that fork off from the electric cord .
Voluntary Movement
Most computerized axial tomography tail bm is voluntary , says Moon , which makes sense when you debate their function . " cat utilize their tails to balance , both when walking on narrow-minded footing and when hunting prey , " she continues . " They alsouse them to intercommunicate with other animals(humans included ) . For example , a gravid , poofed - out tail can indicate they ’re scared or nervous , and a silken tail that gently moves back and forth can indicate contentment . "
As with human physiology , all of the activity lead off in the brain with your cat-o'-nine-tails learn what the tail should do . Nerves then act like cables , delivering the command via electrical signals from the brain to the muscles that cook your cat ’s tail .
Involuntary Movement
While your cat see most of the activity , their tail may move involuntarily because of the following :
Deep sleep : Have you caught your cat twitching and contorting mid - slumber ? Similar to humans , it ’s thought that Arabian tea can havevivid dreamsduring the REM sleep ( rapid eye campaign ) stage of sleep , which can result in some unconscious movements .
reflexive : Surprise ! Just like our limbs can involuntarily move in reception to a stimulus ( your principal jerking backward when startled , for example ) , a cat ’s tooshie may move due to an nonvoluntary reflex .
Photo: Ekachai Chobphot / EyeEm / Getty
Injury : Any injury that interferes with the normal affair of your cat ’s tail can result in unwilled motion . Keep in mind that the trauma does n’t have to originate in the posterior for it to be pretend .
Do Cats Have Feeling in Their Tails?
If you ’ve ever unintentionally abuse on your quat ’s bottom and spend the next hours pray for forgiveness , you ’re sorely aware that their buns do indeed have feeling . In fact , Moon articulate they’reverysensitive , which may explain why some cats wo n’t get you near their tails . This is because CT stern do n’t just have motor brass . They also have sensory nerve that are responsible for carrying signals that help your cat experience touch . So watch where you step to keep any pinched tails !
Different Cat Tail Movements and What They Mean
Your cat ’s posterior can talk . Really ! But alternatively of listening , you ’ll need to expend your eyes to catchthese common gestural cue :
Cat Anatomy and Physiology . Washington State University Extension .
Kailey Whitman
