They’re built to kill. Crazy good reflexes and eyesight, amazing jump height, claws that grab hold of tree branches, feathers, and skin very nicely. There are a bunch of strays where I live, and they are murdering machines when they don’t have a bowl of food plopped in front of them twice a day at their leisure.
The only reason why cats aren’t hunting us down right now is because we’re too big to be prey. I read somewhere a long time ago that domestic cats have one of the highest predation success rate in the mammalian class. Meaning once they choose to actually try to hunt something they usually get it.
I’ve watched neighbours cats take out song birds in our garden several times. They’re usually too well fed to actually eat them so just “play” the bird gets injured/has a heart attack and dies from that. Something like 1 in 10 homes has a cat on average in the UK. The better fed/kept they are the better they hunt.
There was a mockingbird that would always attack our cats. The grandma cat had a beak-shaped cut in her ear and a bald spot on her head from this bird that would attack her. I was fortunate enough to witness the occasion where she finally got revenge on the bird.
It had been pecking at one of the grandkittens and then flew away just too low, and grandma cat did a lightning-fat swipe in the air and just kept walking along like nothing had happened, not looking at the bird. The bird kept flying and flapped its wings like 2 more times, then fell to the ground dead, completely ignored by the cat.
It was the most badass samurai shit I’ve ever seen.
Don’t know for birds but apparently they can win a fight with snake because they have better reaction time. So maybe something similar is contributing here too
In places where cats are native (pretty much the whole old world/Europe, Africa & Asia) it’s mostly killing old or weak birds who can’t fly as well as the fitter, younger birds - they’ve evolved together to get better at hunting/evading each other.
In places where small cats are not native (the new world/Australian & the Americas - especially North America compared to South though due to more convergent evolution in South America) the birds haven’t co-evolved with the cats so don’t see them until it’s too late and they’re already caught regardless of how fit or healthy they are.
It’s a classic case of native species being adapted to deal with native species, and when the invasive species comes it just eats the native one because its skillset is different to the native predators/herbivores/plants/literally any life
how in the world are cats so good at killing something that can literally fly
They’re built to kill. Crazy good reflexes and eyesight, amazing jump height, claws that grab hold of tree branches, feathers, and skin very nicely. There are a bunch of strays where I live, and they are murdering machines when they don’t have a bowl of food plopped in front of them twice a day at their leisure.
Also whenthry do. Cats like to play
The only reason why cats aren’t hunting us down right now is because we’re too big to be prey. I read somewhere a long time ago that domestic cats have one of the highest predation success rate in the mammalian class. Meaning once they choose to actually try to hunt something they usually get it.
Yeah theres like two species that are better, and they’re both also cats.
To be fair they are good at choosing WHO to hunt
They’d be a lion, if they could, essentially
The reflexes of cats are insane and faster then a snake can bite. This video is a little demonstration for that
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=prECuyfQU-o
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And simultaneously can’t find the piece of ham I dropped in front of their nose.
they cant see things that close to them, a certain distance away they will be able to see it
I’ve watched neighbours cats take out song birds in our garden several times. They’re usually too well fed to actually eat them so just “play” the bird gets injured/has a heart attack and dies from that. Something like 1 in 10 homes has a cat on average in the UK. The better fed/kept they are the better they hunt.
There was a mockingbird that would always attack our cats. The grandma cat had a beak-shaped cut in her ear and a bald spot on her head from this bird that would attack her. I was fortunate enough to witness the occasion where she finally got revenge on the bird.
It had been pecking at one of the grandkittens and then flew away just too low, and grandma cat did a lightning-fat swipe in the air and just kept walking along like nothing had happened, not looking at the bird. The bird kept flying and flapped its wings like 2 more times, then fell to the ground dead, completely ignored by the cat.
It was the most badass samurai shit I’ve ever seen.
Patience mostly I think. At least with rodent they smell a trail and then just sit there for hours and hours until one walks near enough.
Don’t know for birds but apparently they can win a fight with snake because they have better reaction time. So maybe something similar is contributing here too
They’re kind of the perfect predators, and birds need to land sometime.
Basically their only weak point, biologically, is their kidneys.
Birdbrains
In places where cats are native (pretty much the whole old world/Europe, Africa & Asia) it’s mostly killing old or weak birds who can’t fly as well as the fitter, younger birds - they’ve evolved together to get better at hunting/evading each other.
In places where small cats are not native (the new world/Australian & the Americas - especially North America compared to South though due to more convergent evolution in South America) the birds haven’t co-evolved with the cats so don’t see them until it’s too late and they’re already caught regardless of how fit or healthy they are.
It’s a classic case of native species being adapted to deal with native species, and when the invasive species comes it just eats the native one because its skillset is different to the native predators/herbivores/plants/literally any life