The Cat

Cat, Domestic, small, mainly carnivorous animal, Felis catus, member of the family Felidae, popular as a household pet, and valuable for killing mice and rats. Like other members of the cat family, the domestic cat has retractile claws; keen hearing and smell; remarkable night vision; and a compact, muscular, and highly supple body. Cats possess excellent memory and exhibit considerable aptitude for learning by observation and experience. The natural life span of a domestic cat …

…Kipling's "Cat That Walked by Himself" (one of the Just So Stories, 1902), the delightful cats of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) by the Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot, and the Cheshire Cat, joint creation of the English writer Lewis Carroll and the illustrator Sir John Tenniel in the children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Many contemporary comic strips and animated cartoons also contain feline characters which delight ailurophiles (lovers of cats) of all ages.