Cats have a funny reputation for being a bit savage.
Whether it's when they stare into your soul and look like they're primed to murder you, the fact some will bring you dead animals as presents or that they seemingly lack any form of emotional warmth - the reputation is understandable.
But now there's another element that scientifically proves cats are assholes.
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Japanese researchers wanted to see whether cats, like some dogs, were able to recognise when their name was being called. They've published their results in Nature and they're pretty surprising.
They grabbed a load of felines and analysed their behaviour in their own home. The scientists recorded the cat's name in both the owner's and a stranger's voice and also a bunch of nouns that sounded similar.
They realised that every time the cat's name was used, either by the owner or the stranger, their ears pricked up or their heads moved, indicating they recognised that specific word, compared to the rest.
"From the results of all experiments, it thus appears that at least cats living in ordinary households can distinguish their own names from general words and names of other cats," the researchers wrote.
"We conclude that cats can discriminate the content of human utterances based on phonemic differences.
"This is the first experimental evidence showing cats' ability to understand human verbal utterances."
So, essentially this means that cats are well aware when you're calling out Mr Tinkles or Mittens, they're just choosing to ignore you because, well, they're cats after all.
But the researchers were pretty hopeful that this study meant good things for cat owners.
"Although such discrimination is acquired without explicit discrimination training, instead emerging from the patterns of natural daily communication between humans and cats, we may utilise this ability positively for cats' quality of life," the study read.
Yeah, try telling that to the people who have found nothing but trouble with their cats.
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This guy installed a night camera to see why he felt like he was suffocating every time he went to sleep.
Achi the cat doesn't curl up with his owner like most cats do. Nor does he stop the blood circulation into his feet by lying on his ankles. Oh no, Achi ramps things up by lying on his owner's face.
When the Thai bloke watched the night time recordings back, he noticed that Achi likes to indulge in a bit of...suffocation - and not the kinky type.
Achi can be seen climbing on top of the guy's chest - which seems pretty normal to us fellow cat owners. Then he confirms with a paw that the guy is, in fact, sound asleep. What a creep.
Seemingly this gives Achi the perfect opportunity to straddle his owner's face with both paws at either side of the guy's face.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Interesting, Community, Animals