“God made the cat that we might caress the tiger’’
Thanks, could not remember the full quote. Any idea who said it? Sounds like a Mark Twain thing.
I have read that their whiskers serve as sensors to enable it to most efficiently deliver the kill bite that severs the spinal cord of its prey. I believe it. I have also heard they allow it to gauge the width of a space they might be running through)
And, on top of that, cats are incredibly athletic.
A while back I read an anecdote about a small boat of poachers who went into a wildlife preserve (I think in Bangladesh) at night with no lights to avoid detection.
It was a small tributary, and as they slowly proceeded in the dark, they heard a soft splash. When they turned on a spotlight, they saw a tiger dragging a guy up the riverbank by his head.
Apparently, there were high banks on both sides of the stream, and the tiger had leaped over the boat, snatched one of the poachers out of the boat by his head in mid-air, and landed on the other side.
The tiger did not even so much as rock the little boat. Until they were out of there, they all stood back to back with guns at the ready.
After watching that video of the woman in China who got out of her car and was nailed by the tiger, I don’t doubt the veracity of that story I heard for a single second. It looked like it grabbed that woman by her lower back with its teeth on each side of her spine and made off with her with seemingly no effort at all.
And then there is this famous clip:
Amazing. For a tiger to snatch a human being from out of a canoe like that is simply amazing. And terrifying.
Without our guns against an animal like that your pretty much helpless.
Your only defense is in groups with traps , spears and intelligence. A cat's whiskers are really extended sensory organs that pick vibrations we can't hear and changes in temperature. As far as gauging anything precisely, well a cat doesn't know an inch from a mile but they do aid it in sensing if a opening in a bush or a doorway is wide or narrow. My house cat never ceases to amaze me despite his average size his speed, agility and strength are just incredible. Just imagine how exponentially it increases in their big cousins.