They're built to kill. Crazy good reflexes and eyesight, amazing jump height, claws that grab hold of tree branches, feathers, and skin very nicely. There are a bunch of strays where I live, and they are murdering machines when they don't have a bowl of food plopped in front of them twice a day at their leisure.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago

Also whenthry do. Cats like to play

[–] InputZero@lemmy.ml 16 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The only reason why cats aren't hunting us down right now is because we're too big to be prey. I read somewhere a long time ago that domestic cats have one of the highest predation success rate in the mammalian class. Meaning once they choose to actually try to hunt something they usually get it.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

Yeah theres like two species that are better, and they're both also cats.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago

To be fair they are good at choosing WHO to hunt

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

They'd be a lion, if they could, essentially

[–] Dulusa@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The reflexes of cats are insane and faster then a snake can bite. This video is a little demonstration for that

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=prECuyfQU-o

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[–] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And simultaneously can't find the piece of ham I dropped in front of their nose.

[–] BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

they cant see things that close to them, a certain distance away they will be able to see it

[–] The_Tired_Horizon@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

I've watched neighbours cats take out song birds in our garden several times. They're usually too well fed to actually eat them so just "play" the bird gets injured/has a heart attack and dies from that. Something like 1 in 10 homes has a cat on average in the UK. The better fed/kept they are the better they hunt.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

There was a mockingbird that would always attack our cats. The grandma cat had a beak-shaped cut in her ear and a bald spot on her head from this bird that would attack her. I was fortunate enough to witness the occasion where she finally got revenge on the bird.

It had been pecking at one of the grandkittens and then flew away just too low, and grandma cat did a lightning-fat swipe in the air and just kept walking along like nothing had happened, not looking at the bird. The bird kept flying and flapped its wings like 2 more times, then fell to the ground dead, completely ignored by the cat.

It was the most badass samurai shit I've ever seen.

[–] repungnant_canary@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Don't know for birds but apparently they can win a fight with snake because they have better reaction time. So maybe something similar is contributing here too

[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Patience mostly I think. At least with rodent they smell a trail and then just sit there for hours and hours until one walks near enough.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

They're kind of the perfect predators, and birds need to land sometime.

Basically their only weak point, biologically, is their kidneys.

[–] yeah 1 points 7 months ago

Birdbrains