Mine’s missing a hind leg. If you scratch him under his ear on that side he gets a look of transcendental bliss as his stump wiggles about wildly.
I don’t know of any literature one way or the other; but it strikes me that it would be far more remarkable if only humans experienced phantom limbs than if a great many mammals(and possibly beyond) did. From what we do know of proprioception, it’s a comparatively low level, unconscious, thing, not a high level cognitive exercise; and it’d be a minor miracle if other animals with complex movement challenges didn’t have something similar. Much harder to interview them about it, of course; but seems likely.
It’s not the neural phenomenon that is remarkable with this cat, but the adorableness.
Very good book called The Tell-Tale Mind by Ramachandran, who discovered the “mirror cure” for the phantom limb phenomenon. Has an explanation, which I’m sure I would mess up, but basically there’s no reason it wouldn’t apply to any mammal.
Oh how sad! My cat and I were in tears, especially after I told her I want her to try this too.
Awww. Poor kitteh was left-pawed.
Somewhere in Cheshire, there is a leg without a cat.
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