Why Does a Cat Hiss?<\/p>\n
Ever noticed that the sound of a cat’s hiss and that of a snake are quite similar? It seems that it isn’t just a coincidence. The cat’s hiss is actually a case of protective mimicry; in other words, that cat imitates the snake to give an enemy the impression that it too is venomous and dangerous. Predators have a great respect for venomous snakes and will often pause long enough for the snake to pass. Supporting this idea is the fact that a cat will usually spit while hissing-another way that a threatened snake reacts. A cornered cat may also twitch or thrash his\/her tail in a special way, impersonating the movements a snake makes. It has also been suggested that as long ago as the nineteenth century the pattern of markings on a tabby cat are not direct, simple camouflage, but rather are imitations of the camouflage markings of a snake. A killer, such as an eagle, seeing a sleeping cat might as a result of this resemblance, think twice before attacking.
\nTaken from “Catwatching” by Desmond Morriss. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why Does a Cat Hiss? Ever noticed that the sound of a cat’s hiss and that of a snake are quite similar? It seems that it isn’t just a coincidence. The cat’s hiss is actually a case of protective mimicry; in other words, that cat imitates the snake to give an enemy the impression that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleartheair.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}