Shark Week Shark Facts

Shark Week is coming up: is your cat prepared?

If you are reading this you probably love cats and you may be at least curious about sharks. But have you ever wondered how cats compare to sharks? We have prepared a series of Shark Facts to help make sense of it all.

Shark vs. Cat Facts #1

It's true: sharks poop in the water. They always have and they always will. These cartilaginous fish have been living on our planet some 420 million years. Just imagine 420 MILLION years of sharks pooping in the oceans. That's a lot of shark poop! What happens to all of that poop? The environmental food chain includes creatures that eat whatever they come across; they are called detritivores. Detritivores live on the land and in the ocean and they scavenge organic garbage, including fish poop. 

Cats Poop in the House

It's handy to have those sharks outside pooping in the water where creatures like sea cucumbers and shrimp will clean up after them.  Your cat probably poops inside and you probably have the chore of cleaning it up. Clearly the ocean has created a clever way of managing things, and humans would be smart to preserve that efficient system. 

Shark vs. Cat Facts #2

Sharks can "hear" underwater, which is kind of confusing for me to understand. They have an inner ear (cats have an outer ear and inner ear) and for both creatures the inner ear has little hairs that feel vibrations. Sharks can hear deep, low pitched sounds better than high sounds. 

 Cats Can Hear Stuff That You Can't Hear

Cats can hear high pitched sounds, in fact cats are really good at this and can hear sounds in very high, ultrasonic frequencies. In the animal world cats are some of the best at hearing these frequencies. Why do they have this ability? Some of the prey that cats typically would hunt, including mice, make noises in these frequencies. Apparently rats also communicate a lot in these high frequencies, but we just can't hear it.This hearing skill lets cats know more about their prey. We do not have this hearing skill so it can be difficult for us to understand our cat's perspective.

The next time you see your cat staring at the wall consider the possibility that your cat can actually hear something inside the wall and you can't. 

Shark vs. Cat Facts #3

Even all of the sharks in the world have less hair than a single hairless cat, because:

Even Hairless Cats Have Hair

There are over 400 species of sharks. They have been a successful group of animals and have lived on this planet longer than cats have. Sharks are a type of fish that don't have bones; their internal skeleton is made of cartilage. It's easier to find shark teeth and even fossilized shark teeth because 1) sharks make so many teeth in their  lifetimes, and 2) the cartilage based shark skeleton is more likely to decompose than to get fossilized. 

Cats have skeletons made of bone, and cat bodies have been fossilized, but sharks simply do not have hair or fur, so it's true that even a "hairless" cat has more fur than any shark, or even all of the sharks. 

Shark vs. Cat Facts #4

Sharks don't sleep like humans do but they do rest. 

Cats Sleep a Lot!

You've probably noticed this already, but cats sleep a lot. We aren't exactly sure why cats sleep so much, but there's a good chance that chasing prey like mice and birds around requires a lot of energy. Here at the Cat Ball, we think that your sleepy cat needs a good cat bed.