BECCA'S CATS series # 28 Mystery Cache

Mrs. Becca is our local cat expert. The Becca cat’s series was placed in honor of her. She has a unique way of loving your friends and family that be those with two legs or four. Please enjoy this series as it will grow into a geo art when it is done.

It’s time to look inside our feline friends today and find out: how many bones are in a cat skeleton?

There are more than you think, and they do some interesting things!

So let’s learn all about them.

You might not have given your cat’s internal anatomy a lot of thought before, but cats have remarkably specialized skeletons.

Every time you see your cat arch their backs at an unwelcome sight, stretch out to scratch the furniture, leap into a tree, or land on their feet when they fall back out of said tree, amazing and unique adaptations in their bone structure are making it all possible.

A basic knowledge of your cat and bones will help you understand them on deeper level, and might one day even come in helpful if you’re talking to a vet about a possible break.

If you thought this was a straightforward question with a straightforward answer, guess again!

But there is a short answer and a long answer, and the short answer is: about 245, on average.

Which is a fair few more than us humans with 206!

So, now we know how many bones are in a cat skeleton, let’s find out what our cats are doing with all those extra bones, and why some cats have more than 245 bones and others have less.

Let’s start with a domestic cat skeleton drawing, to give us a window under our cats’ fur.

Here’s a basic cat skeleton with the principal bones.

It’s pretty unsurprising, although without a cat’s distinctive ears you might not instantly recognize it for what it is if you saw one in a museum.

Some of the names might look familiar too, whilst there might be others you haven’t come across before.

Most bone names come from Latin, but don’t worry, I’ll be using plain English descriptions as we go along as well!

There are not 245 bones in that diagram!

True!

We told you how many bones are in a cat skeleton, and then gave you a picture that suggests otherwise!

But there are some really good reasons for that.

First, some bones are incredibly tiny, far too small to include.

For example, just like us, cats’ ears each contain three tiny bones called ossicles which transmit sounds from the air into the inner ear.

These are barely millimeters big, and yet intricately shaped.

This is interesting though – their size is relative to overall body size, but as they get smaller they can transmit higher and higher frequencies, which means our domestic cats at home can hear much higher pitches than, say, a tiger!

And the other reason is that some bones are fused together.

One example is the pelvis: although it looks like one bone, it is actually formed of six bones arranged in three pairs.

And another great example of is cat skulls.

How many bones does the average cat have?

230 to 245 N 30° 36.370 W 085° 23.359

209 to 230 N 30° 36.367 W 085° 23.350

very cat has a different amount so no one knows N 30° 36.360 W 085° 23.300