- A group of cats is called a "clowder"
- A cat can't climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat's paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down.
- Cats are North America's most popular pets: there are 73 million cats compared to 63 million dogs. Over 30% of households in North America own a cat.
- The group of words associated with cat (catt, cath, chat, katze) stem from the Latin catus, meaning domestic cat, as opposed to feles, or wild cat
- A cat's hearing is better than a dog's. And a cat can hear high-frequency sounds up to two octaves higher than a human.
- A cat can travel at a top speed of approximately 31 mph (49 km) over a short distance.
- A cat can jump up to five times its own height in a single bound.
- Some cats have survived falls of over 65 feet (20 meters), due largely to their "righting reflex."
- Most veterinarians believe that a cat purrs by vibrating vocal folds deep in the throat. To do this, a muscle in the larynx opens and closes the air passage about 25 times per second.
- Most cats give birth to a litter of between one and nine kittens. The largest known litter ever produced was 19 kittens.
- Smuggling a cat out of ancient Egypt was punishable by death.
- The earliest ancestor of the modern cat lived about 30 million years ago.
- The biggest wildcat today is the Siberian Tiger.
- The smallest wildcat today is the Black-footed cat.
- In Britain and Australia, black cats are considered lucky.
