Basic Cat Anatomy for Better Understanding of Your Cat

As an owner of a house cat, you should aware of the basic cat anatomy. Once you know about the cat anatomy, it would be easy for you maintaining cats. The body structure of the cat comprises of skeleton and muscles.

The bones including skull bones, pelvic bones, and appendicular skeletal bones (cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal vertebrae) are giving enough support and stamina to the cat's body.

The skeleton comprises limb bones like scapula, femur, metacarpal, metatarsal and phalanges. The significant muscular structure comprises muscles like masseter muscle, biceps femoris, triceps, hyoideus, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus muscles. Basic anatomy forms the basis for understanding the cat species.

Coat

In basic cat anatomy, coat plays an important role. The coat has primary and secondary hair whereas the color of the coat depends upon the genes and nutrition. The features like medullations are important in the hair materials. The hair of coat develops from follicles and the guard hairs are thickest ones than the secondary hair. Cat's coat is thinner than dog and secondary hair are dominant in cat species.

Claws

The claws are retractile in nature and are the specialized structures in basic cat anatomy. The claw has structures compressed laterally. The sole at ventral region is soft and horny walls grow over the sole regions.

Lateral jaw movements are totally absent in cat species and the hunting functions orient to the movement of the prey species rather than the vision related functions of body. The twitching of tail, movement of jaws etc. in basic cat anatomy are well coordinated reflexes in body and the impulses from brain are mediated through nerves for making functions in body.

The mouth and digestive system have important components like buccal region, pharynx, larynx, palates in oral cavity and stomach with intestines. Papillae are many in the tongue region of oral cavity.

Stomach and Intestines

The stomach has pylorus and this gets united with small intestine, which also has outlet through bile duct and pancreatic duct. The small intestine is followed by large intestine.

In basic cat anatomy, small intestine is most important due to its significant physiological function. The food from mouth is passed on to the esophagus and then, it enters into the cardia, then into the body of stomach. From pylorus of stomach, entry of food materials is straight to the duodenum, which is followed by the jejunum, ileum and finally, the intestinal segments.

The intestinal segments comprise of small intestine and large intestine. The large intestinal segments contain cecum, colon and rectum. The rectum ends up in anus, which is a terminal part of gastro-intestinal system. Some of us think that there may be some difference in the anatomy of female cat. There is no such difference except that the male cat penis contains spine.

Wanna add to your cat's longevity? Then, observe your cat and do a perfunctory examination at least for each month to identify health problems early. For this purpose, you do require to know about the basic cat anatomy. So, don't hesitate to learn about this basic cat anatomy. Happy kittens!!!

RELATED ARTICLES (Click the topic below to get an idea about cat anatomy)

Anatomy of Cat Coats

Basic Cat Anatomy of feet and claws

Hunting Functions of Cats

Basic Anatomy of Mouth and Digestive System of House Cats

Basic Cat Anatomy - Skeleton and muscles

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