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Asked by zjohnston312 to Sam, Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob on 18 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by wizzyg12, beth5000, hannahbash.
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Sam Geen answered on 18 Jun 2013:
So this video is really cool – someone takes videos of dropping cats in slow motion (I’m sure the cats were fine!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWbpyjJqrU
Basically cats have a really good sense of balance, and can rotate themselves to face the ground with their legs to avoid hurting themselves. They can bend their legs to absorb the force of hitting the ground over a longer time and avoid a large impact “impulse” that would hurt them.
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Matthew Pankhurst answered on 18 Jun 2013:
Two things about cats that make them very good at this (but sometimes it doesn’t work so I won’t recommend throwing your cat around!). The first is that they are very flexible, which means they can flip themselves about in mid air. The second is that because they are a hunter they have very good eyesight which means they can judge the distance between them and the ground very well. Put these two things together and you have a creature that most often lands the way it wants to!
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Claire Lee answered on 19 Jun 2013:
There is an “official” problem called the “Falling cat problem” that deals with this effect 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_cat_problem
Interestingly too – a cat is more likely to hurt itself if it falls out of a building less than 6 stories high. People who study this think this is because the cat reaches terminal velocity after falling 5 stories, so higher than that it relaxes a bit before landing, reducing its injuries.
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