Why do cats do that?
They're cute, they're lovable, and judging by the 26 billions views of over 2 million YouTube videos of them pouncing, bouncing, climbing, cramming, stalking, clawing, chattering, and purring,
one thing is certain: cats are very entertaining.
These somewhat strange feline behaviors, both amusing and baffling, leave many of us asking, "Why do cats do that?"
Throughout time, cats were simultaneously solitary predators of smaller animals and prey for larger carnivores.
As both predator and prey, survival of their species depended on crucial instinctual behaviors which we still observe in wild and domestic cats today.
While the feline actions of your house cat Grizmo might seem perplexing, in the wild, these same behaviors, naturally bred into cats for millions of years, would make Grizmo a super cat.
Enabled by their unique muscular structure and keen balancing abilities, cats climbed to high vantage points to survey their territory and spot prey in the wild.
Grizmo doesn't need these particular skills to find and hunt down dinner in her food bowl today, but instinctually, viewing the living room from the top of the bookcase is exactly what she has evolved to do.
As wild predators, cats are opportunistic and hunt whenever prey is available. Since most cat prey are small, cats in the wild needed to eat many times each day, and use a stalk, pounce, kill, eat strategy to stay fed.
