If you don’t already know (and why would you?), cats are my favourite animals. I love small cats and large and my favourite cat is the Tiger. I was therefore very interested when I saw this article on the BBC website. In it, Ella Davies explains why bigger cats, like Lions and Tigers, roar and Wildcats meow. I have wondered this for a while and find it very interesting so I thought I would tell you all about it.
In a recent study, two scientists from the Alexander Koenig Zoological Research museum in Germany analysed the calls of 27 different species of cat and investigated whether they were affected by the habitat that the cat lived in and the size of the cat. While previous research found that it was the cat’s size that influenced the pitch of its calls, this study showed that cats living in open areas (e.g. lions, servals and cheetahs) had deeper calls than those living in dense habitats such as forests (e.g. marbled cats, wildcats and clouded leopards).
Previous research has shown that high pitch calls can be disrupted by dense vegetation and low pit calls are disrupted by air turbulence in more open spaces. Other scientists believe that the reason is actually because big cats can produce sounds at a lower frequency and this is why lions roar while cats meow. However, this study investigated this theory and found that body weight had no effect on how deep the call was.
I have found the published works of this study and plan to read through it for some more information. I will get back to you! You can find the article at the BBC here.
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