The ancient Egyptian word for cat was "mau" which is what cats still say, and also meant "to see" in ancient Egyptian.

Cats are very clean. They have bristles on their tongues to brush their fur, and have a special detergent in their saliva. Unless a cat gets terribly filthy, it will never need a human to give it a bath.

Cats rarely meow to each other. They meow to people, because they want to talk to us (and they know many of us are too stupid to understand body language!).

A cat is a natural born hunter, but will not kill unless taught by its mother.

Cats have very unique eyes. They have binocular vision, like humans, so they have excellent depth perception. They are a bit nearsighted, but see movement very well. Cats see colors a bit differently than us. They see blues and greens, but somewhat muted, and reds look like black. They have many more rods than cones, which enable them to see better in the dark. They also have "mirrors" at the back of their eyes, allowing any faint light source to bounce back and throw even more light onto the cat's retina - that's why cats have eyes that glow in the dark!

When cats are sniffing something, they often curl their lips and wrinkle their noses (we call this "eh" in our home). This is because they have an extra smelling organ under their upper lip, and this helps them detect the odor better.

Cats are the only animals that purr. Scientists still aren't sure how they do it. Cats usually purr when they are very happy. But sometimes a cat will purr when it is scared or sick, to try to calm itself.

Cats and camels are the only animals that walk with a stride where both legs on one side of the body move forward at the same time.

Cats have tongues that curl under when lapping up liquids!

Cats are the only animals with retractable claws. Their claws grow from the center outward, so the oldest cells of the claw are always on the outside. A cat needs to scratch this outer layer off to make way for the new layers. All indoor cats need scratch posts for this reason. Also, cats like to scratch to mark their territory, with the scents glands that are on their feet.

Cats sleep about 18 hours a day. Much of this is just "cat napping."