Most Cats Sleep on Their Left Aspect, and Scientists Assume They Know Why

In the event you’re a cat proprietor, chances are high you spend an unhealthy period of time scrolling by means of your picture gallery, reviewing lovely photographs of your cats for the thousandth time. Whereas doing so, maybe you’ve seen that your cats seem to favor a sure aspect whereas sleeping. And if that occurs to be the left aspect, new scientific analysis suggests you’re proper. 

This might be a survival technique for cats, in line with a current examine printed in Current Biology. Within the paper, the researchers clarify that in mammals comparable to cats, the proper hemisphere of the mind controls the left visible area, spatial consciousness, and fast responses to threats. Sleeping on the left permits the proper hemisphere of a cat’s mind to be available to establish and coordinate a fast escape, the scientists declare. 

Nearly all animals are in danger to predators whereas sleeping. That’s an issue for cats (a minimum of of their pre-domesticated pure state), who spend round 12 to 16 hours every day sleeping. For that motive, cats often sleep in places they contemplate protected. However the researchers have been curious as as to whether cats advanced different techniques to remain protected throughout and instantly after their frequent naps. 

To reply this query, the researchers analyzed 408 publicly out there YouTube movies that includes cats sleeping on their sides, with the requirement that the nap needed to be uninterrupted for a minimum of ten seconds. They discovered that in two-thirds of the movies, the cats most well-liked to sleep on their left aspect, which the researchers then tried to clarify when it comes to neuroscience. 

“Since cats want to sleep in elevated positions, upon awakening they’d instantly see predators or prey with the left aspect of their visible area,” the examine authors defined in a statement. “For the reason that proper hemisphere has superior spatial talents and may rapidly coordinate fast escape and presumably additionally searching 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 components that affect a cat’s favored sleeping place. Whereas their evaluation of the movies turned up a statistically vital leftward bias on the inhabitants degree, “we clearly don’t have any details about the intercourse or being pregnant standing of the videotaped cats,” they wrote within the paper. 

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

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

A fast and really unscientific inhabitants survey amongst Gizmodo and Kotaku’s cat house owners affirmed the examine’s findings, displaying a barely better tendency for cats to favor their left aspect whereas sleeping. I used to be additionally capable of verify that my roommate’s two cats each have a tendency to curve up on their left aspect. There have been, nonetheless, some outlier circumstances, comparable to 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 information, we’d like to ask our readers to share their cats’ favored sleeping place within the feedback. Photograph proof is inspired.