As a result of their super-duper studies, some special researchers have come up with some norms for us kitties regarding the height and weight characteristics that we are supposed to have. Since they’ve gone to all the bother of analyzing us, I’ll fill you in on the results of their efforts.
It’s been determined that the typical cat weighs somewhere between 8 and 11 pounds (3.5 to 5 kilos), although some of our kind may be as light as 4 pounds (2 kilos) or as heavy as 25 pounds (11 kilos). I heard that one of the largest kitties weighed almost 50 pounds (23 kilos). Can you imagine a cat of that size wandering around your neighborhood!
Yikes! That last one sounds like a Godzilla kitty. When he is seen outdoors with this super huge body, he would probably scare off every dog around without even having to hiss or show his claws! Pretty cool, huh?
Come to think of it, I should invite him over some afternoon to hang out with me a while. That would most definitely calm down that woofing Spike beast next door and all others of his species on my street who are so fond of chasing us and making our life rather insecure and miserable in general. Yeah, that’s a plan!
As for our height, we average around 9-10 inches (23-25 cm.) from top to bottom. That sounds perfect to me, and probably is one of the reasons for everybody thinking how really cute we are!
But there’s something even more incredible about our body structure. Are you ready for this? Very unlike the much less interesting human arms, our front legs are attached to our shoulders by what’s called “free-floating, clavicle bones.” Translated into everyday language, this means that because of the extraordinary flexibility of movement these clavicle things provide us with, we can easily squeeze our whole body through any opening that our head fits into.
Imagine that! Does that make you a little jealous of us cats when thinking about these cool clavicles we’ve got?