Moments You Had With Your Pet That Taught You Something New

[Spacescifi]

6 hours ago, Nuke said:

i always though cats were actually farsighted. you also have a completely different eyeball geometry, supposedly cats with stilted pupils see the world in widescreen. some wild and big cats have round pupils. they got a floating retina and a reflective membrane in the back of the eye, so the retina gets hit from both sides, effectively doubling the sensitivity. there are plenty of cat vision simulations on youtube.

cool thing about cat hearing is that it is directional, its like one of those parabolic microphones that can hear what the neibors down the street are saying while eliminating ambient noises. whats more they can be actively targeted. a more evolved cat brain might also have better audio processing such that they can effectively "see" sound. house cats are already really good at precisely localising sounds. i could be on my workbench and drop a tiny screw on the floor and one of the cats would quickly find it and investigate, hopefully i can pick it up before they bat it across the room.

i dont think a strong sense of smell would be all that bad, especially if you are used to it. it would be totally gross to suddenly get a stronger sense of smell. cat pee has a very strong scent, but most cat people usually grow numb to it over time. yet when non-cat-people enter the room they almost always recoil to the smell.

sensory wise i think an evolved kitty would make a very good soldier provided they avoid hand to hand paw to paw combat. probibly not your grunts but perhaps your spec ops, artilliary spotters, scouts, snipers, etc. 

 

Thank you, your real life experiences with cats will prove invaluable to my worldbuilding.

Regarding eyes, I was more likely just to use round pupils like lions have (more color variety though).

I figure if little cat eyes were advantageous for big cats... they would be equipped with them. Animals are built quite logically to be optimized for whatever they do. Cat eyes are ideal given their high jumping feets, whereas bigger cats hardly ever jump as high by comparison since it would hurt if they did.

So in conclusion, a humanoid cannot jump like a cat in 1g, so pure cat eyes are not an advantage, although having round ones with full color vision and night vision mode could prove useful. With the handicap that they are shortsighted since I don't want them to ovetpowered with my worldbuilding.

Spoiler

 

So cat hearing will be a boon, especially in low light situations.

Regarding eyesight, I know in darkness they can see quite well due to the 'inner mirrors' their eyes have behind them. Combined with sound location they no doubt could find prey or companions in the low light conditions with ease.

Ironically, humanoid cats are not built as killing machines by any measure, any more than human bodies are, what they are naturally built for thanks to greater range of hearing and scent is detection of other life forms.

Which means they make excellent scouts and whatever work requires stalking other living things, whether for killing and eating or simply search and rescue or curiousity.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Regarding eyes, I was more likely just to use round pupils like lions have (more color variety though).

I figure if little cat eyes were advantageous for big cats... they would be equipped with them.

The little manul looks at you with perplexity in his round pupils.

Spoiler

 

[Spacescifi]

25 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The little manul looks at you with perplexity in his round pupils.

  Hide contents

 

 

Thanks. Who knew?

[Spacescifi]

 

Funny thing is... cats do stuff that is also... disturbing.

Enough that I am honestly not sure if I would want to write cat themed humanoid race with the cat predator trait... for this reason among several others.

https://twocrazycatladies.com/cat-behavior/cat-cannibalism-its-a-thing/

Like seriously... the line between man and beast,  civilization and pure instinct without want or need for conscience prickling has to be drawn somewhere.

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Spacescifi

[magnemoe]

It was not my pet but my parents dog, I was an old teen and was playing with their dog throwing sticks. 
I thought this had gone on long enough and had to put the dog back into its enclosure then it returned with the stick. 
The dog understood this and did not get close to me. I tried to jump him but he evaded. Now that is remarkable enough. 
However the game was still on, except now the dog would not get closer than meter of me. 

I was barefoot on the lawn and stepped on the stern of an rose flower chasing the dog, I fell over and screamed or cursed, The dog believing I was hurt came over to me. I catch him, but he got an treat for coming to me. 
 

[StrandedonEarth]

9 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I thought this had gone on long enough and had to put the dog back into its enclosure then it returned with the stick. 
The dog understood this and did not get close to me. I tried to jump him but he evaded. Now that is remarkable enough. 
However the game was still on, except now the dog would not get closer than meter of me. 

I have the opposite sort of game...

I have a labernese, which looks like a stocky black lab (I call her a "Mountain Lab". At 100lbs (oops, 45kg) she's built for power, not really speed or endurance,  as she tires fairly quickly running. But she has good endurance swimming; it keeps her cool.

Anyways, for her usual exercise we drive to a nearby field, where I throw the ball using  a "Chuck-It^tm" for long throws. It's only two or three throws at first until she's tired enough to not want to drop the ball. So we walk around the field, and I'll get the ball and throw it when I can (usually when she drops it while sniffing something), maybe another two or three times. Once we're back at the car and she realizes it's time to go, then she will voluntarily drop it for me to throw. This happens anywhere from one to five times while I stand by the open car door. When she's had enough and is tired enough, she'll just get in the car with no prompting from me.

[Nuke]

On 8/15/2020 at 8:05 PM, kerbiloid said:

The little manul looks at you with perplexity in his round pupils.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

they have taken over my youtube account. 

3 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Funny thing is... cats do stuff that is also... disturbing.

Enough that I am honestly not sure if I would want to write cat themed humanoid race with the cat predator trait... for this reason among several others.

https://twocrazycatladies.com/cat-behavior/cat-cannibalism-its-a-thing/

Like seriously... the line between man and beast,  civilization and pure instinct without want or need for conscience prickling has to be drawn somewhere.

 

its not a forgone conclusion that a more intelligent cat would develop some code of ethics like what we have compared to our ape ancestors. granted it might be completely different than what we use.

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, Nuke said:

they have taken over my youtube account. 

its not a forgone conclusion that a more intelligent cat would develop some code of ethics like what we have compared to our ape ancestors. granted it might be completely different than what we use.

 

The Manul is not as agile as normal cats, but it typically waits outside where prey lives (burrows or caves or tunnels), and just ambushes them before they can run away.

Strictly speaking, cat-humanoids are not evolved cats as I envision them.

They are literally humanoids with some cat features and traits thrown in for good measure.

We could speculate to no end over their ethics, but they actually have none.

The closest they come to that is following their instincts, and beyond that if they like you, fear you, or not.

Ethics completely different from what we know?

Unlikely... as I can only write what I know. 

Ultimately the choices are finite, hardly infinite:

1. Beastly ethics. Less human, more animalistic, which does not jive with civilization either.

2. Human/cat swapped modified ethics: An aversion to eating... anyone you don't know? Animals are fair game though. Weird I know. Funerals? Ugh... humans won't want to attend that. Ewww. Such a custom would be normal to them though. Part of the reason it's so absurd for us is that we are not kitted out for that, like a cat's teeth and tongue are literally made for for hunting and devouring recently killed prey. Cooking is purely optional for them. Their digestive systems can handle raw and actually prefers it. If I made their digestion require cooking their meat first? That could work perhaps... although without an instnctual drive to cook their food there will be serious problems early on, unless someone guided and told them that from the start.

Cooking is part of what separates man from beast.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

It was very hard to play with our cat with the usual piece of paper on a thread.
Because she clearly saw the root of evil and attacked not the paper but the finger, pulling the thread.

So, we were leaving skipped the paper-and-thread phase and just played tiger-vs-python (or whatever the hand represented in her imagination).

Both of our last cats liked the bring-the-stick game with toys, usually paper balls.

Of course, a p2p football with any toy.

And one of them searched on command demand various known to him things and beings in the appartment, and meowed to call us to see it found.
(The she-one was able, too, but this was too lazy for her to do.).

[Nuke]

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

The Manul is not as agile as normal cats, but it typically waits outside where prey lives (burrows or caves or tunnels), and just ambushes them before they can run away.

Strictly speaking, cat-humanoids are not evolved cats as I envision them.

They are literally humanoids with some cat features and traits thrown in for good measure.

We could speculate to no end over their ethics, but they actually have none.

The closest they come to that is following their instincts, and beyond that if they like you, fear you, or not.

Ethics completely different from what we know?

Unlikely... as I can only write what I know. 

Ultimately the choices are finite, hardly infinite:

1. Beastly ethics. Less human, more animalistic, which does not jive with civilization either.

2. Human/cat swapped modified ethics: An aversion to eating... anyone you don't know? Animals are fair game though. Weird I know. Funerals? Ugh... humans won't want to attend that. Ewww. Such a custom would be normal to them though. Part of the reason it's so absurd for us is that we are not kitted out for that, like a cat's teeth and tongue are literally made for for hunting and devouring recently killed prey. Cooking is purely optional for them. Their digestive systems can handle raw and actually prefers it. If I made their digestion require cooking their meat first? That could work perhaps... although without an instnctual drive to cook their food there will be serious problems early on, unless someone guided and told them that from the start.

Cooking is part of what separates man from beast.

i think cats rely on nutrients that are thermally sensitive. cooked food might actually be bad for them. unless those nutrients are added back in after cooking like with cat food or taken as a supplement. the anti-pathogen anti-parasitic benefits of cooking still remain though. they might also supplement processed meals with high quality raw meat (sort of like sushi).  or they might simply take their meat rare (best way to make a steak imho, just walk it through the kitchen).

Edited August 22, 2020 by Nuke

[kerbiloid]

That's what makes the food "cooked" for us (except the sodium glutamate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

, and unlikely other animals have chance to try it in the wild nature.

(Though, some fishes prefer fried bait, to get hooked and cooked).