How your favourite feline at home is akin to the lions in Africa

Most people are aware of some of the key similarities between big cats and our domesticated feline friends. Cats have become one of the most loved pets across the globe. Our love for cats extends out to the big cats such as lions, tigers and cheetahs.

Image Credit

There are in fact more similarities between big cats and domestic cats than there are differences. The differences include:

• Big cats don’t purr but they do roar and in comparison, our domesticated cats do purr some incredibly loudly, but they can’t roar. This is as a result of some anatomical differences in the design and makeup of the throat area of these two types of cats.
• If you have a cat at home you will be used to seeing the vertical shape of their pupils, this is different in large cats who had round pupils much like those of humans. It is thought that the difference between the pupil shape is due to the differences in the environmental location and the lifestyle of the different sized cats.
• As is common in larger animals the big cats have larger brains than their domesticated cousins. This is the only difference in terms of their brain as the structures of the two are the same.

Other than the differences mentioned a study of the DNA of both big cats, wild cats and domesticated cats found that they have 95 percent of the same DNA.

Image Credit

The traits that all cats appear to share regardless of their size and environmental location include the following:

• Heat seekers – call cats are heat seekers and whilst you might be alarmed to find a big cat like a lion or a tiger sunning themselves in your extension that you had created by a Conservatories Cheltenham company like https://www.firmfix.co.uk/conservatories/, seeing your domesticated cat in the sunniest spot of the room will be a common occurrence.
• The sense of smell of all cats is very sophisticated and they will both use their mouths as another mechanism to be able to smell more complex aromas. You may have seen a cat opening their mouth if they smell your shoes or perhaps a new meal type as they are trying to identify all of the elements making up that overall smell.
• All cats are carnivores which essentially means that meat of any variety makes up the majority of their diet and therefore their bodies are much better at digesting the protein found in meat rather than the materials found in plant-based products. When stalking and catching their food, both domestic and big cats will often play with or hide their food. This serves more of a purpose for wild cats who will hide and even bury some of the prey in order to keep it safe from scavengers.
• Cats are often lorded as being able to sleep absolutely anywhere and for large portions of the day. In fact, wild and domestic cats can sleep for anywhere between 16 and 20 hours a day.