tomtom said:
they did a survay of new york vets... apparently it happans extreamly often over there.. anything above the 7th floor and the cats normaly are fine.. i cant remember why though sure someone will come up with a reason!
Cat are the only animals to have variable terminal velocity....
A human for example, if dropped from a great height will increase in falling speed until they reach their terminal velocity. At that speed when the impact comes it will kill us. This is a lethal terminal velocity.
A Spider or ant for example, if dropped from a great height will also increase speed to their terminal velocity but at that speed when the impact comes it is not going to kill them. This is a non-lethal terminal velocity.
Cat's tumbling are heading towards lethal terminal velocity as they fall but use their ability to twist the spine to get themselves the right way up, they then spread their four legs as far apart as they can. This stretches the skin and fur between the legs and actually causes their body to work like a parachute. As soon as they get into this position they are starting to slow down their speed towards a non-lethal terminal velocity.
Hence, if you drop a cat from say 5 to 10 feet it will not have had time to reach lethal terminal velocity and so will survive.
Drop it drop say 10 to 20 feet and it will have reached lethal terminal velocity but won't have had time to use it's "parachute" to slow it down and so will be killed.
Drop it from say 25 feet and upwards and although it will have reached it's lethal terminal velocity it will also have had time to deploy it's "parachute" and so slow itself down to it's non-lethal terminal velocity and so it will live.
This also explains why cats "almost" always land on their feet when dropped or when they fall.
Hope that's of interest to you and saves anyone throwing their cats off the car park to try to find out why!!!! lol
