Does your cat sometimes seem to stare into space? Does he ever stare at places where there is nothing special, like a wall? Don’t panic, that doesn’t mean he sees ghosts! In reality, our feline friends have a much higher level of perception than ours. So, if your hairball is staring at a particular spot, it’s probably because he’s seeing or hearing something you can’t perceive.
A hunter’s vision
Your cat has much sharper eyesight than yours. Note that we are not talking here in terms of sharpness of vision, but rather in terms of movement perception. Indeed, your cat is able to distinguish the smallest movement at a great distance. In addition, it perceives their surroundings much more clearly than you in the dark.
The reason? The eyes are made up of two types of sensory cells: cones and rods. The cones are used to differentiate colors while the rods are used to detect movement.
However, cats have more rods than cones, unlike humans who have more cones than rods. It is also thanks to this that our feline friends are excellent hunters. Indeed, they can thus locate a prey from very far away.
In addition, your feline also has overdeveloped hearing. And its ears can rotate in all directions, it is able to locate exactly where a sound is coming from. For this reason, it may sometimes direct their ears and their gaze towards a very specific place because hit has heard a hissing sound in an air duct or a mouse moving in the wall.
Therefore, when your cat looks at points in space, whether on the wall, on the ceiling or on the floor, it is for the simple and good reason that it sees or hears something that you cannot. to distinguish. It could be flying dust, a spider or even a light reflection. And their hunting instinct commands them to watch this new element carefully.
When to worry?
If your cat tends to block very often on particular points, it is still better to be vigilant. Indeed, this can be a sign of feline hyperesthesia syndrome, which has the particularity of exacerbating the senses of the animal.
However, other strange behaviors can then be observed: spasms of the back, attack of its tail, dilated pupils, loud mewings, sensitivity to touch, frantic licking of the base of the tail, crazy races…
Unfortunately, it is not yet known exactly what causes feline hyperesthesia. But in any case, if you observe several of these symptoms in your cat, a veterinary consultation is essential.
