Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/28/why-dont-house-cats-roar.html
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That was cute. But I just spent 25 enjoyable minutes watching more of their videos when I should have been working. Oops.
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They could if they wanted to.
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OK, I haven’t watched the video yet, but logically it should be for the same reason you can’t get deep bass sounds out of a tweeter. The common house cat is too small to make deep bass growls, a quiet purr is the best it can do.
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You should watch, its entertaining and a bit more complicated than just size.
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Roaring would blow their cover. Purring, chasing laser pointers, and not roaring is all part of an elaborate disguise. When they are ready, then they will roar, and that will be the signal for the uprising.
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My cat come awfully close. He’ll sometimes let out an extended whine that could pass for a scaled-down roar.
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My next guess is: hormones.
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Very interesting – due to not just size but tissue composition and presence or absence of structures.
But – I had a real hard time listening to this. The video cuts eliminated any kind of pause between one scene and the next, and the host is already speaking almost faster than I can keep up. I was exhausted by the end of the five minutes.
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Housecats don’t roar but big cats don’t purr. Seems like a fair trade-off.
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Next, I want to know why my cat says Mmm-gow, instead of meow?
ETA: As @anon36081309 mentions different cats sound different, and yes - mine literally says “mmm-gow”. She does a lot of that “mmmrrr?”, too.
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Maybe it just isn’t speaking English.
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Most of mine say myooo (mew?) but one says ma-rou (ou as in ouch). Maybe it’s just a dialect, since he came from a different place than the others.
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That was not relevant to my interests, despite the beautiful Maine Coon on the cover.
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Heyifyoucan’tkeepupwiththebigdogsstayofftheporch!Weliveinaninformationsocietyandthere’ssomethingneweverysecond.It’suptoyouifyouwanttokeepupwithitornotbuteitherpissorgetoffthepot.I’llconcedethatwithanewideaeverysecondit’shardtokeepupwithwhat’simportant.Sodon’tforgetaboutJoeWurzelbacher!When’sthelasttimeyouthoughtaboutJoeWurzelbacher?AlsoElianGonzalez!Let’snotforgetaboutElianGonzalez.
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OMGThtssofnnyLOL! One of our cats talks about that fast.
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Cheetahs purr!
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I don’t know, but I strongly suggest that you get out of there… like NOW!!!
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They’re bilingual, you know, PSL.
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