House Cats - Animal Kingdom Month

To wrap up our Animal Kingdom month, Quizmaster Tanner wrangled together four facts on house cats! But one of his facts might scratch you if you come in for cuddles, since it's 100% false! If you're feline lucky, take a listen to this popular request and play along with hosts Sups and Andi as they try to guess the lie. 

Transcript

Andi 0:01

all fine. I, my hands are all scratched up, but like, I love you

Sups 0:04

you.

Andi 0:06

That's torture. for a cat. Can you imagine that cat in zero g Freaking out like freaking out. Oh poor baby That is the most irritating cat behavior. Cause it's like, I wanna love you, you're purring, you're so sweet, but you are clawing me to

Tanner 0:25

Yeah, cats are really weird.

Andi 0:28

Hello and welcome to this episode of I Should Have Known, the trivia game show that can't be trusted. Each week, one of our Quizmasters will present you with four facts about a topic, but one of those facts is a lie. We are finishing up our exploration of the animal kingdom with an oft requested topic. Our quiz master this week is Tanner.

Tanner 0:50

Yes,

Andi 0:52

and as that indicates, we are finally doing an episode on house cats. So he will present us with four facts about cats, but one of them is a lie. So join me, Andy, and our other host soups in figuring out which one it is.

Tanner 1:07

it is.

Andi 1:08

so we've done dogs multiple times. We've done big cats, like tigers and lions. We've never done house

Sups 1:14

house cats.

Andi 1:16

people have asked about that. They're like, what, why no house

Sups 1:19

cats? Why?

Andi 1:19

Cuz you know people are like dog people or cat people. I guess cat people are feeling left out. I think it's cuz we're all dog people.

Sups 1:27

people. Yes. That

Andi 1:28

I mean I love kitties, don't get me wrong,

Tanner 1:30

left out.. House cats. Felis catus is their scientific name. Also called domestic cats.

Andi 1:37

Yes, okay.

Tanner 1:38

So your pub quiz question for the week. Which country has the most domestic cats.

Andi 1:45

Which is literally the largest number of cats.

Tanner 1:48

largest number of cats. House cats, pet cats, stray cats, feral cats.

Andi 1:54

Hmm.

Tanner 1:54

All of these is the same country.

Sups 1:56

I think it has to be some Arabic. morocco.

Andi 1:59

I don't think it's big enough. I, I feel like it's probably just

Sups 2:02

like it's

Andi 2:03

Or I would even just biggest country, Russia,

Sups 2:05

Okay.

Andi 2:06

but I think it might be the US

Sups 2:08

Yes.

Andi 2:09

because it's so large. But I don't know,

Sups 2:12

Yeah. Okay.

Andi 2:13

It's going to be something where we're going to be like, Oh my God, obviously should have known that.

Sups 2:16

have known that. France. Mm hmm

Andi 2:19

Okay.

Sups 2:20

I'm

Andi 2:21

I'm not I'm not on board with that one. I don't think, I don't think it's,

Tanner 2:24

easy one, come on.

Andi 2:26

This is easy?

Tanner 2:27

Yeah! Okay,

Sups 2:27

Okay, the U. S.

Tanner 2:28

S. Yes, correct, yes. Yeah, you got

Sups 2:32

it.

Tanner 2:32

The U. S. has between 74 million and 117 million Domestic cats, including pet cats, feral cats, stray cats. Second place goes to China,

Andi 2:42

Yeah.

Tanner 2:42

between 53 and 105 million. And then Russia, with 23

Andi 2:48

Yeah. See I was on the, I was on the idea of like the biggest one. biggest,

Tanner 2:52

And those three are way ahead of any other countries. you're in the right track,

Andi 2:57

Okay.

Sups 2:58

Cool.

Andi 2:59

Kitty

Tanner 3:00

There's at least 45 domestic breeds

Andi 3:02

species or anything like that. They're all cats. Okay. look up. Yep. And

Sups 3:15

noise

Andi 3:15

to

Sups 3:16

don't want a

Andi 3:18

You don't want a catterwall for us? Come on, you want a catterwall? Yeah, you do. Meow!

Tanner 3:24

Alright. Fact number one. House cats cannot taste sweetness.

Andi 3:31

Huh. No

Tanner 3:31

Humans and many other animals have five basic types of taste receptors, Could you please rename them?

Andi 3:39

Thanks. I'm going to go back to elementary school.

Tanner 3:41

Yeah, what are the five types of taste receptors?

Andi 3:43

So sweet, bitter, sour, umami.

Tanner 3:48

Yes, or savory.

Sups 3:50

And

Andi 3:51

Salty. Yes. Oh, salty. You weren't helping over here, Snoops. He's just looking at me like, Mmm,

Sups 3:57

I was, watching

Andi 3:59

I got him.

Sups 4:00

Yeah.

Tanner 4:00

And sweet taste receptors were thought to be universal in animals, but they've studied domestic cats and they're neither attracted to nor avoidant of sweet foods. And so they do have avoidance of bitter. And sour foods,

Andi 4:16

Yeah,

Tanner 4:17

okay, so they can definitely taste that. But when you look at their nerve fibers, they don't show any response to sucrose and other

Andi 4:26

just ambivalent to sugar that's super hard to believe

Sups 4:31

I've only seen cat eating fish. I've never seen like picking up

Andi 4:35

chocolate I mean, yeah, that's a common thing about how cats are true carnivores, so they eat primarily meat, and so I guess why would they need sugar? But for me it's weird because like. you know, if you think about chemically, how our bodies work, sugar is like the most basic source of energy. That's what our brains use, our bodies break everything else we eat down into sugars and then that's how we get energy. yes, I would agree that like, it would be universal, because that's like, we're going tadpole brain way back, you know? Like, bacteria go towards sugar. Like, that's very weird

Sups 5:12

Yeah, I don't know. an interesting fact. It's not something that you think about. but also I'm trying to think of all the cat owners I know and I've seen cats what they eat and I'm trying to think up if I've ever seen or if there's like a preference

Andi 5:28

that's weird. I think the only thing making this believable is that I don't think Tanner could have come up with

Sups 5:33

up with

Andi 5:33

But I find the whole premise

Sups 5:35

Because it

Andi 5:36

true of all cats?

Tanner 5:37

All house

Andi 5:38

House cats, but what about big cats? Like do lions like sugar?

Tanner 5:42

Yeah, some big cats are also ambivalent towards sweetness. But focusing on house cats today.

Sups 5:50

I can only imagine a tiger. There's like a dead animal lying and there's like cake and the tiger goes, yeah, I want some cake. I've had a lot of dead, dead animals. Yeah.

Andi 6:00

dead animal this morning and I wanted something

Sups 6:03

Yeah. Some, some cheesecakes.

Andi 6:04

I've been eating a lot of dead animal lately. Yeah,

Sups 6:08

I get, I can totally imagine that situation. Yeah.

Andi 6:11

Wow. Okay.

Sups 6:13

Okay. Cool.

Tanner 6:14

Let's move on to fact number two. House cats only purr around humans.

Sups 6:19

Hmm. I

Tanner 6:20

So cats have multiple kinds of purrs, different frequencies, different pitches, used when they're content. When they're eating, when they're being petted, when they're becoming relaxed. And, it's also thought to be a signal to the human that they're not a threat. The cat feels content and not threatened, and so they purr for

Andi 6:39

I find that very deceptive because I've been bitten by

Tanner 6:42

by humans. Ha ha

Sups 6:44

Purring.

Tanner 6:44

ha They're playing with

Sups 6:46

you. Ah, yeah. Can I just bite you and you get 14

Tanner 6:50

know, right?

Andi 6:51

I know, right? all fine. I, my hands are all scratched up, but like, I love you

Sups 6:55

you. I've this kind

Andi 6:58

I've heard this fact before. It's like one of those internet facts, so I'm wondering if like maybe it's not real. It's a myth, it's not so weird that an animal would have a human specific adaptation. Like dogs, for example, make eye contact. And that's extremely rare in the animal kingdom, so they, clearly evolved to do that to please us. So, it makes sense that if cats adapted and evolved in a way that will like, pleases

Tanner 7:25

the musk.

Andi 7:26

sure.

Sups 7:27

Why wouldn't they keep purring between themselves?

Andi 7:30

Yeah.

Sups 7:30

there are two cats in the house, how are they talking to each other then?

Tanner 7:33

are they talking to each other? to make the purr, they vibrate their vocal cords and make a fluttering sound with them. But they can meow, of course, and hiss if they're feeling threatened, and

Andi 7:48

They caterwaul when they're

Sups 7:49

bones. Caterwaul, yeah.

Tanner 7:50

Yeah, they make tons of

Sups 7:52

sounds. Okay. So only the purr is for humans. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay, now I think it's more believable,

Andi 7:59

Yeah. But now I'm remembering in our big cats episode. We talked about purring because we talked about how cats that purr can't roar and cats that roar can't purr. So wouldn't that imply that other big cats purr? if they aren't our little cuddly buddies, then why are they purring?

Tanner 8:19

I

Andi 8:21

I don't know. I don't know.

Tanner 8:22

Beamed us. You know, they don't know. As

Andi 8:31

could see that, because like,. they have thing? I'm pretty sure they do that. They will, like, sit on people who are about to die. Because they know they're dying. They, like,

Sups 8:42

give them comfort. Hmm.

Andi 8:44

Okay. Well, I need to hear some more for sure, but I'm skeptical.

Tanner 8:49

fact number three in 1963 France sent the only house cat into space

Andi 8:57

If this is anything like the dog, they sent us space. This is gonna be a very sad story.

Sups 9:01

Yeah. Did the cat make it back? She did. Okay, good. Well done.

Andi 9:04

wow. Good job.

Sups 9:07

France

Andi 9:09

made it back. Okay. What was, tell us about this kitty.

Tanner 9:12

Felicette. It's

Andi 9:14

Oh my God.

Tanner 9:15

like the female version of Felix. And she was the first and only cat to go to space. They launched from Algeria on a Veronique AG AG 1 rocket. She flew 100 miles up, or 157 kilometers, experienced 5 minutes of weightlessness in space, and then parachuted back to Earth, and the whole trip took 13 minutes.

Andi 9:38

Was she accompanied by a human? That poor cat if this is real that's like like come on man That's torture. for a cat. Can you imagine that cat in zero g Freaking out like freaking out. Oh poor baby

Tanner 9:54

She went from earth gravity to 9. 5 times earth gravity to weightless, and then back to earth gravity.

Andi 10:01

Oh my god. That poor baby. Did we learn vital information about mammals in space? Okay, good. I'm

Sups 10:07

What did we learn? What was

Tanner 10:09

We learned cats can go to space.

Andi 10:11

great. Well,

Sups 10:11

What Amazing lesson.

Andi 10:15

she

Tanner 10:15

was chosen because of her calm disposition. She was very

Andi 10:19

And

Sups 10:27

Yeah.

Tanner 10:27

And she helped the French space research teams for another two to three months. And then

Sups 10:33

retired.

Tanner 10:34

They retired her. They put her to sleep.

Sups 10:36

Oh, okay. So there is no happy

Tanner 10:39

I mean, she landed safe.

Sups 10:41

Okay. Every And the moral of the story was cats can go to

Tanner 10:44

build

Andi 10:45

They always land in their

Sups 10:46

Yeah,

Tanner 10:47

was like

Sups 10:49

oh yeah, that is true.

Andi 10:50

breed was

Tanner 10:51

A tuxedo cat. So I

Andi 10:53

that he knew that. Look how excited he was to tell me that.

Sups 10:56

Alright. I mean, Hmm. I'm sure some country has sent it question is whether it's France, 1963 I don't know. Maybe it was Russia and they were like, okay, I mean, we'll bring, or somebody else.

Andi 11:09

I mean, to you, you seem to have associated cats in France in your head. To me, they're not like, so

Sups 11:14

No, there is a thing going on between. Yeah.

Andi 11:17

So I guess, I mean, sure.

Sups 11:20

Yeah. I mean, they lie there literally because I believe cats have been sent to space. The question is, is the timing or the country

Andi 11:28

Yeah. Or have they sent a bunch of cats? Have there been just like an army of cats sent into space?

Tanner 11:35

Get all those

Sups 11:36

Yeah. It's, it's, it's possible.

Andi 11:39

they could fur everywhere.

Sups 11:41

But of the three, I think this one is, I believe it more.

Andi 11:46

yeah, there are easy places where it could be alive, but like, yeah, okay.

Sups 11:50

hmm.

Tanner 11:51

four. Fact number four. Adult house cats are lactose intolerant. ha ha

Sups 11:56

Why do we force feed them milk again?

Andi 11:59

right. That's kind of a trope, right? Where cats eat, drink Milk. But that's only baby cats. Kittens.

Tanner 12:06

That's right. Young cats still make lactase and so they can break down lactose into galactose and glucose and then digest it in the small intestine. But as cats get older and weaned off of their mother's milk they don't make So much lactase, if any at all. And so lactose goes into their small intestine, undigested bacteria, get onto it and give cats the farts and cramps and diarrhea and vomiting, and it's not a good time. Yeah,

Andi 12:41

but I've seen adult cats drink milk. They, I guess they're like adult humans, where they're like, This is gonna give me the but I'm gonna eat it anyway.

Sups 12:49

Yeah.

Andi 12:49

You know, you get that cheese. pizza, and you're like, Yeah, this'll

Sups 12:52

Yeah. If there's like pecorino on the table. Yeah. I am going to, I will deal with the aftermath after.

Andi 13:01

Yeah, I love that both of you are like sitting here being like, yes, I am. I'm good. I am

Sups 13:07

Good. I am severely like Yeah. And I refuse to believe that I am

Tanner 13:11

to believe

Andi 13:13

you're, more likely to be right. Like it's usually it's Europeans and people of European descent who are more likely to not

Sups 13:20

be

Andi 13:20

lactose intolerant, but so why did we don't feed your cat milk? Moral of the story. But then why does it eat it? Why is it, you maybe they know and they're just being

Sups 13:33

predictive. I'm gonna fart a diarrhea all over your apartment lady, like, I'm gonna drink

Andi 13:42

Just gonna rancid fart all up in your apartment

Sups 13:45

Is there a purr

Andi 13:47

I'm

Sups 13:49

intolerant?

Andi 13:50

Yeah, right. Yeah, I guess the only reason this would be like debatable sounds like a lie is that it's so common that kind of the idea of giving a little pan of milk to a kitty. So I guess that's, but like adult mammals being lactose intolerant is, I would assume pretty normal.

Tanner 14:08

Mm hmm.

Sups 14:09

hmm.

Andi 14:09

We only like milk when we're babies.

Tanner 14:11

Yeah, you think of mammals and, we drink milk. But only as children, only as babies. Yeah.

Sups 14:16

I mean, we do drink milk as adults, and we shouldn't be doing that, but

Andi 14:21

Yeah, I mean, right. Well, well, humans, yeah, humans kind of, you know, messed with everything as usual, where we, we, we keep putting our opposable thumbs on the evolutionary scale and messing with things. So maybe, I don't know, maybe that's the trick. Maybe we've messed with cats. Maybe

Sups 14:37

So made them. Them

Andi 14:39

they've, they've they've developed, through being with us, they've developed a taste for milk and then their, their tummies are like, mm, cow's milk.

Sups 14:47

Yeah.

Andi 14:48

That could be. It could be like the only other animal that drinks some other animal's milk is the cat and that's because humans keep feeding it to them.

Sups 14:56

Exactly.

Andi 14:57

That would be a pretty wild lie. Wow, well you've definitely given us a lot to think about. But before we guess on these feline facts, could you please repeat them for us?

Tanner 15:09

a facts. Can you please repeat them? House cats only per around humans. Fact number three, in 1963, France sent the only house cat into space and fact number four, adult house cats are lactose intolerant. One of those is false. A strange

Sups 15:45

did emphasize Yeah, one of those, facts where like, one.

Andi 15:55

it's one of those, facts where you're like, there's just one other one.

Sups 16:00

I'm trying to think if you, if the U. S. has ever sent a cat.

Andi 16:04

I could have sworn there was a NASA cat. There was like a cat at NASA that did, that did something, but I don't know if they sent it into space.

Sups 16:13

Yeah. They're so mean. Yeah. Which one are you thinking?

Andi 16:16

I kind of convinced myself a little bit on the lactose intolerant thing, like how wild would that be if it's like, Oh, actually we genetically modified cats.

Sups 16:23

Yeah.

Andi 16:24

But purring thing, why would they even purr, like, if other cats purr, and why would they have all of the organs to purr and then only purr for humans? I think maybe that's too much hubris. We humans think. They're only doing it for us. But they're like, nah. It's just that I'm not around any other cats. Maybe most people have only one cat. So then their cat only purrs around humans because their cat's never around other cats?

Sups 16:51

Yeah, that's that's an interesting one. I, I'm with you. I believe there is a possibility. But I'm also now going back and thinking about number one. Is that maybe they have sweet receptors. It's just that maybe they don't like it. I mean, like there's always a preference, right? I like fish,

Andi 17:07

But that's even so weird, like sugar is the. Like basic building block of, our animal energy and then they're just like, nah. But I guess if any species of animal was to do the weird thing, it would

Sups 17:21

Big cats. Yeah. Okay. Hmm. All right. We have to pick one. Yeah, it's like touch and go. Because I want to say France because you said only. And that always bothers me. maybe fact number one, I think I want to

Andi 17:34

going to switch to one? Yeah. I think I'm going to do the purring thing. I think it's like a common myth? thinking.

Sups 17:41

Sounds good. Yeah.

Tanner 17:42

yeah. Okay. So one and two?

Andi 17:44

Yes. Do we have cat scratch fever?

Sups 17:47

But just like cats, do we get, like, nine lives, nine

Andi 17:50

yeah, yeah, you get nine options. That's right, yeah, yeah. Are we scratching the wrong

Tanner 17:55

Yes, right one of you is right. house cats cannot taste sweetness. That is correct. There's a defect in the TAS1R2 gene.

Andi 18:04

Oh, soops, how did you not know about that?

Sups 18:06

not know that? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. why? It's such a common, I just totally missed it. I was thinking about the TASR1. Oh!

Tanner 18:17

no.

Sups 18:19

but, yeah, so close. Ah,

Tanner 18:21

our bad days. How could

Andi 18:26

Of course, babies!

Tanner 18:28

that? Oh, poor babies.

Andi 18:33

that's weird. That's throwing all of our, like, stereotypes out the window

Tanner 18:36

all of our stereotypes out the window right now. Like they purr a lot. And they purr a couple days after being born. So kittens purr right away, before they even know what a human is.

Andi 18:56

Aww, that's so cute.

Tanner 18:57

scientists think that the behavior that cats show towards humans is from the way that kittens behave towards their mothers. Right. They're the caretaker. Feed me. I'm gonna purr. I'm gonna need you to get the milk flowing.

Andi 19:13

Oh, that's why they do that? Yeah. That is the most irritating cat behavior. Cause it's like, I wanna love you, you're purring, you're so sweet, but you are clawing me to

Tanner 19:23

Yeah, cats are really weird. Yeah, so the lie was number two.

Sups 19:27

But I think this pairing thing, definitely an urban internet

Andi 19:31

definitely an urban thing. Yeah. No, it's just hubris

Tanner 19:36

Yeah, and people should go back and listen to the Big Cats episode, because we definitely talked about this. The difference between purring and roaring, and cats which can do one but not the other one. Yeah,

Andi 19:47

I remember that.

Tanner 19:49

A feature of the structure of their vocal

Andi 19:51

track. Yeah. It's so interesting. Well, I mean, we've. Clearly proven that cats are, like, very weird. Creatures, and maybe we'll warrant a second episode, but if you were one of those people who was requesting the cat episode, let us know how you found this. Was it too easy? Did you guess the lie? I mean, I'm very curious what you guys think, because we don't often get requests, but this one has been requested many times. So we finally did it for you. Stop, complaining now.

Sups 20:20

But keep

Tanner 20:21

well,

Andi 20:21

keep listening. Yeah, well, maybe we'll do another

Sups 20:24

do another one. Keep requesting, keep

Andi 20:27

Yes, please. I should have known.

Sups 20:29

I should have known. So,

Andi 20:31

thanks for listening to this episode of I Should Have Known. This is the end of our animal theme month. Hope you guys all enjoyed it. If you did, please let us know and feel free to suggest future episode topics or themes. Next month we are going to be starting A recurring theme we do every February, it is anti Valentine's, so we celebrate the opposite of Valentine's Day every February. And I'll be kicking it off with an episode, on historical divorce traditions. So, get excited for that. and as always,

Sups 21:06

a fart now.