Most Cats Sleep on Their Left Facet, and Scientists Suppose They Know Why

For those who’re a cat proprietor, likelihood is you spend an unhealthy period of time scrolling by way of your picture gallery, reviewing cute pictures of your cats for the thousandth time. Whereas doing so, maybe you’ve observed that your cats seem to favor a sure facet whereas sleeping. And if that occurs to be the left facet, new scientific analysis suggests you’re proper. 

This may very well be a survival technique for cats, based on a current research revealed in Current Biology. Within the paper, the researchers clarify that in mammals resembling cats, the correct hemisphere of the mind controls the left visible area, spatial consciousness, and fast responses to threats. Sleeping on the left permits the correct hemisphere of a cat’s mind to be available to determine and coordinate a fast escape, the scientists declare. 

Nearly all animals are in danger to predators whereas sleeping. That’s an issue for cats (at the very least of their pre-domesticated pure state), who spend round 12 to 16 hours every day sleeping. For that purpose, cats normally sleep in places they think about secure. However the researchers had been curious as as to if cats advanced different techniques to remain secure throughout and instantly after their frequent naps. 

To reply this query, the researchers analyzed 408 publicly accessible YouTube movies that includes cats sleeping on their sides, with the requirement that the nap needed to be uninterrupted for at the very least ten seconds. They discovered that in two-thirds of the movies, the cats most popular to sleep on their left facet, which the researchers then tried to clarify when it comes to neuroscience. 

“Since cats favor to sleep in elevated positions, upon awakening they’d instantly see predators or prey with the left facet of their visible area,” the research authors defined in a statement. “For the reason that proper hemisphere has superior spatial talents and may rapidly coordinate fast escape and probably additionally looking capabilities, left-side sleeping would supply evolutionary advantages as a survival technique.”

However because the scientists themselves admit, this conclusion warrants additional investigation to discover different potential elements that affect a cat’s favored sleeping place. Whereas their evaluation of the movies turned up a statistically important leftward bias on the inhabitants degree, “we clearly haven’t any details about the intercourse or being pregnant standing of the videotaped cats,” they wrote within the paper. 

Certainly, being pregnant is likely to be one other complicating variable, a development scientists beforehand noticed for pregnant cows. Moreover, “pawedness”—the cat model of right- or left-handedness—must also be considered for future analysis, the scientists mentioned. 

General, the authors conclude that this discovering, whereas topic to debate, “may present a superb alternative to check the emergence of asymmetries on the inhabitants degree, whereas additionally serving to us to study extra concerning the nature of one in every of our favourite pets.”

A fast and really unscientific inhabitants survey amongst Gizmodo and Kotaku’s cat homeowners affirmed the research’s findings, displaying a barely higher tendency for cats to favor their left facet whereas sleeping. I used to be additionally capable of affirm that my roommate’s two cats each have a tendency to twist up on their left facet. There have been, nonetheless, some outlier circumstances, resembling Kotaku employees author Zachary Zwiezen’s feline companion, who reportedly “simply does the tremendous tight curl and turns into a wierd natural form that, whereas cute, lacks any sides.”

To assemble extra knowledge, we’d like to ask our readers to share their cats’ favored sleeping place within the feedback. Photograph proof is inspired.