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Keep in mind, all members of the "cat family" have the following characteristics in common:
- They are certainly digitigrade, have 5 toes on their forefeet and 4 on their hind feet. Their curved claws are protractile and attached to the terminal bones of the toe with ligaments and tendons. The claws are guarded by cutaneous sheaths, except in the Acinonyx.
- The plantar pads of both fore and hind feet form compact 3-lobed cushions.
- They actively protract the claws by contracting muscles in the toe, and they passively retract them. The dewclaws are expanded but do not really protract.
- They have lithe and flexible bodies with muscular limbs.
- The skull of the cats is foreshortened with a rounded profile and large orbits.
- They have 30 teeth. The upper third premolar and lower molar are adapted as carnassial teeth, suited to tearing and cutting flesh. The canine teeth are large, reaching exceptional size in the extinct saber-toothed species. The lower carnassial is smaller than the upper carnassial and has a crown with 2 compressed blade-like pointed cusps.
- Their tongue is covered with horny papillae, which rasp meat from prey and aid in grooming.
- Their nose projects slightly beyond the lower jaw.
- Their eyes are relatively large, situated to provide binocular vision. Their night vision is especially good due to the presence of a tapetum lucidum, which reflects light back inside the eyeball, and gives felid eyes their distinctive shine. As a result, the eyes of felids are about 6 times more light sensitive than those of humans, and many species are at least partially nocturnal. The retina of felids also contains a relatively high proportion of rod cells, adapted for distinguishing moving objects in conditions of dim light, which are complemented by the presence of cone cells for sensing colour during the day.
- They have well developed and highly sensitive whiskers above the eyes, on the cheeks, on the muzzle, but not below the chin. Useful whiskers help to navigate in the dark and to capture and hold prey.
- Their external ears are quite large, and especially sensitive to high-frequency sounds in the smaller cat species. This sensitivity allows them to locate small rodent prey.
- Felids have a so-called "vomeronasal organ" in the roof of the mouth, allowing them to "taste" the air. The use of this organ is associated with the Flehmen response. The flehmen response (also called the flehmen position, flehmen reaction, flehmen grimace, flehming, or flehmening) is a behavior in which an animal curls back its upper lip exposing its front teeth, inhales with the nostrils usually closed, and then often holds this position for several seconds. The behavior facilitates the transfer of pheromones and other scents into the vomeronasal organ (VNO, or Jacobson's organ) located above the roof of the mouth via a duct which exits just behind the front teeth of the animal.
- They cannot detect the sweetness of sugar, as they lack the sweet-taste receptor.
- They share a broadly similar set of vocalizations, but with some variation between species. In particular, the pitch of calls varies, with larger species producing deeper sounds; overall, the frequency of felid calls ranges between 50 and 10,000 hertz. The standard sounds made by all felids include meowing, spitting, hissing, snarling and growling. Meowing is surely the main contact sound, whereas the others signify an aggressive motivation.
- They can "purr" during both phases of respiration, though pantherine cats seem to purr only during oestrus and copulation, and as cubs when suckling. Purring is generally a low pitch sound of less than 2 kHz and mixed with other vocalization types during the expiratory phase. The ability to roar comes from an elongated and specially adapted larynx and hyoid apparatus. When air passes through the larynx on the way from the lungs, the cartilage walls of the larynx vibrate, producing sound. Only lions, leopards, tigers, and jaguars are truly able to roar, although it seems that the loudest mews of snow leopards have a similar, if less structured, sound.