Cats are graceful creatures, with strong muscular legs and a love of climbing. They can often be found balancing on fence tops or tree branches. But with climbing comes falling, and we’ve all heard that saying that cats always land on their feet, but is this the truth? And if so, how is it possible?

Do Cats Land on Their Feet?

Cats are generally great climbers and agile on their feet, but they’re not immune from the occasional fall. Cats do have an innate ability to right themselves when falling so they land on their feet. But a successful landing is dependent on factors like the height from which they fall, their weight and their health. Poorly cats, senior cats with arthritis and overweight cats are less agile so are less likely to land on their feet.

Although cats will usually land on their feet, it’s not guaranteed, and even if they do, it can still result in injuries. Jumps and falls can cause fractures, sprains, broken bones and other serious internal injuries. Falling should be prevented as much as possible, so either keep windows in your home shut or install window guards to prevent your cat from accidentally falling out.

Why Do Cats Always Land on Their Feet?

It used to be thought that cats only landed on their feet because they would push off a surface giving them momentum to turn. According to the conservation of angular momentum, it’s impossible for an object that’s not already spinning to suddenly rotate without momentum.

However, in 1894 a French scientist called Etienne-Jules Marey used a chronophotographic camera to test this theory. He captured 60 frames a second of a cat’s fall, from which the cat was held upside down by their legs and then dropped. The cat was therefore not able to push off a surface to gain momentum.

Marey was then able to watch this in slow motion and see how a cat turns their body round so they land on their feet. But how they were able to do this was yet to be discovered, so the falling cat problem continued.

In 1969, James Clark Maxwell, a physicist known for his work on electromagnetism, conducted some experiments where he would drop cats from varying heights and monitor how they managed to land. He discovered that the cat’s lower and upper body are able to rotate in opposite directions, therefore preserving the conservation of angular movement. When the body rotates in two different directions, there’s no change in the angular momentum.

Cats have vestibular apparatus in their ears, which is used for balance and orientation. When falling, they can quickly work out the right way up and rotate their head, which their body then follows. To spin themselves round, they use their legs to control their angular movement.

First, they bring their feet underneath their body and their front paws close to their face to gain control. Then they stretch out their legs in turn to rotate the upper or lower body until they’re correctly aligned. This is all possible because cat's have an extremely flexible backbone, which has 30 vertebrae and no collarbone. This innate ability to spin round has been called the ‘righting reflex’.

The righting reflex starts to develop from as early as 3 weeks old and is fully developed by 7 weeks.

How Height Affects a Falling Cat

The height of the fall affects whether a cat will land on its feet. A study done in 1987 by the New York City Animal Medical Centre analysed the records of falling cats from high rise buildings. The study found that 90% survived the fall and only 37% needed emergency care.

The height of the fall affected the outcome, with the most injuries occurring between 2-6 stories. Surprisingly, those between 7-32 stories suffered less injuries. There was one cat who fell from 32 stories, landed on concrete, and only suffered a chipped tooth and a minor lung puncture. The cat was released home from veterinary care after only 48 hours.

Scientists concluded that the higher the fall, the more time the cat has to right itself. Plus, it’s believed that falling felines reach a maximum velocity of 60 mph (about 120 mph in humans). At this point they relax, and their legs stretch out to expand their body size which creates air resistance.

Much like a flying squirrel! Their parachute like structure slows them down thanks to drag resistance, so the impact when they land isn’t at top speed.

A cat’s ability to land on their feet is thanks to their anatomical structure. Despite their great climbing and balancing abilities, all cats experience a fall with a bad landing at some point. If your cat does have a fall, they may sustain some serious internal injuries, so even if they do land on their feet, take them to see the vet straight away for a check-up. 

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Content provided from Vetstream's Vetlexicon Felis - www.vetlexicon.com/treat/felis

Vetlexicon is the world’s largest peer-reviewed online clinical reference source. All our content is written and peer-reviewed by over 1,000 of the world’s leading veterinarians, ensuring relevance, accuracy and quality.