The Universal Cat


Listen To These Lovely Cats. No, Actually, Don't – NPR
by ROBERT KRULWICH
May 04, 2014

"Oh, evolution," writes Mara Grunbaum in her new, about-to-come-out book, WTF Evolution, "You were doing so well with the lynx. You made it a fierce and graceful hunter, you gave it a luxurious spotted coat, you gave it pretty yellow eyes and tufted ears — and then you made it sound like this …."

What crazy evolutionary logic led to these vocalizations? The first lynx, the one facing the camera, sounds like a creaking door with squeaky hinges, the second one like an ambulance siren with a weak, failing battery. Close your eyes and you're in a zombie movie, with unearthly howls and strange, shared silences.

But, Why?

I looked up "lynx vocalizations" to find out why they sound like this. Apparently, explaining weird cat sounds is not yet a major scholarly pursuit. Mel and Fiona Sunquist, in their book Wild Cats of the World, say lynxes can "mew, spit, hiss and growl; they also yowl, chatter, wah-wah, gurgle, and purr." But the Sunquists don't say why. Another scholar, Gustav Peters, says lynx mating calls (Is that what we heard? Or was that just two lynxes yakking?) are "a series of intense mews." Intense, for sure. Mews? Those lynxes weren't mewing.

No, maybe it's as Mara supposes in her new book. Designers — be they all powerful, or natural selectors operating randomly — have their off days. How does Mara explain lynx vocalizations? This way: "Go home, evolution, you are drunk."




That range of vocalizations explains why the common house cat has so many different sounds, too. Siamese cats make the famous “baby crying” sound, which is just a very guttural and deep-throated meow. The first time I heard one I thought it might have rabies. I was assured that they all sound that way, so I adopted the cat and came to love her very much. She, like my calico, was decidedly “feisty” and I saw her jump almost 20 feet straight up when a dog came running through the yard. She landed on a pine bough overhead.

Then there are the full range of howls, yowls and screeches that fighting tom cats make. Too often I have been awakened at two AM by that sound. My calico Sally Petunia had to share the waiting room at the vet's with a playful 6 month German shepherd puppy one day. She literally snarled at him loudly, and he did back away very fast. His owner took control of him from then on. I have heard cats make sounds that are almost as if they are trying to talk like a human, which the “chatter” and “wah-wah” could describe. But of course, finally, there is the lovely sound – the purr. Even tigers and lions purr, I am told. I personally think all those sounds are “beautiful” in their way, as their menacing slinking motion when hunting is. Not every animal has to sound like a canary, after all. Cats are beautiful, but they are also predators. Predators aren't villains. That's just their role in nature.