You know how cats always land on their feet?
Well; they DO NOT!
Now now! I know you know that I am a dog lover but this is not a reaction to that!
Most of the times cats land on their feet because of something called a Righting reflex! It is a bio physics phenomenon!
This reflex starts in the inner ear’s vestibular apparatus, which tells the cat which way is up! It is the same apparatus which even tells every human how to find your seat in a dark theatre!
Now apart from that the cats have a highly flexible spine (30 vertebrae) and no functional collarbone, allowing them to twist their upper and lower bodies in opposite directions simultaneously!
So a deep collarbone may be a sign of beauty and prospect of a future model; but it comes at a cost of your flexibility! You cannot land on your feet when you fall! Which is probably why Models fall!
Then you have Physics! By pulling their front legs in and extending their back legs, they change their moment of inertia to spin quickly mid-air!
This technique is so good that NASA and other space agencies study this for astronaut movement (not UNESCO! so you know it is not fake!)
But (yeah now the blog gets interesting or falls down depending on how you see it!); there are many reasons why the cat may not land on its feet!
One is contrary to expectations; it is better if the fall is at a greater height for landing on your or cat’s feet!
This is because if a fall is too short (less than 1–2 feet), a cat may not have enough time to complete the rotation!
Like every other being, age catches up with even cats so if the cat is overweight, elderly, or suffer from arthritis may lack the speed and flexibility to right themselves!
Then you literally have the whole body of the cat acting like a Parachute! A feat seen in many animals especially the high ‘flying’ ones and this is at more greater heights!
So counterintuitively, cats sometimes fare better in falls from higher stories (7+ floors) because they reach terminal velocity, relax, and spread their limbs out like a parachute to increase drag!
Then again just because they parachute or land on their feet; they can still get injured!
The impact from a significant height can still cause severe injuries, a phenomenon known as high-rise syndrome.
So you can be a dog lover and then say that you thought the cat would always land on its feet and that is why you ‘pushed’ it! But that is just pure evil! Hope that thought process makes a good landing someday!
Always a good landing though was Jagajit Singh and his amazing vocals!
Now have a proper nap and not a catnap!
Shubh ratri!
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