Cat survives 80ft fall from tree!

drunken fool said:
i remember watching QI once and they said on there that it's safer for cats to fall from 7th floor window than a 3rd floor window. When falling it takes a while but apparently they spread their legs out and the bits of skin between them sort of act as a paracute.

Of course, i may have just dreamed this :)
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too many cartoons seeing cats falling with legs spread ;]
 
drunken fool said:
i remember watching QI once and they said on there that it's safer for cats to fall from 7th floor window than a 3rd floor window. When falling it takes a while but apparently they spread their legs out and the bits of skin between them sort of act as a paracute.

Of course, i may have just dreamed this :)
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lol you drunken fool... *goes to try it*
 
greenlizard0 said:
It didn't die!?!?!?!?!?! God the things are indestructable :(
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9 lives, remember?

Warning: Above link - while hilarious - may contain one instance of the sweary word beginning with s. If even this is too much, then mods - do yo' thang.

In fact, in case the above link is removed, here is the relevant portion:

Uncyclopedia cat expert said:
The nine lives of a cat are stages that every cat must pass through in their hopefully short-lived adventures on Earth:
1. Catamaran - The common cat is brought into the world by Spartacus on a boat.
2. Caterpillar - In its early years, the cat must spend its time as an irritating insect with too many legs.
3. Catalyst - If your cat has not been neutered, it will spread its love amongst many other felines.
4. Cat Stevens - After producing offspring, your cat will not be allowed within US borders.
5. Catterick - On its 89th birthday, it is compulsory for a cat to serve time in the military in North England.
6. Catering van - After military service, your cat will run a burger van on the side of the M5 or A469 producing disgustingly unhygienic fried cow poo for white van men and tourists. The van will be named something along the lines of 'Fluffy's Burger Heaven'
7. Catatonic - A cat will spend this life sleeping but also excreting a liquid that goes good with gin
8. (s)Catman - Scatbedooblewooblewibbleydoobles.
9. Tom cat- at the age of 200 the cat will attempt to rule the world, starting from Hollywood. After the plot inevitably fails, the dismayed cat returns to Catspace to be recycled.
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drunken fool said:
i remember watching QI once and they said on there that it's safer for cats to fall from 7th floor window than a 3rd floor window. When falling it takes a while but apparently they spread their legs out and the bits of skin between them sort of act as a paracute.

Of course, i may have just dreamed this :)
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The man speaks the truth...sort of. Cats have a much lower terminal velocity than humans and so fall slower. So if they have enough time to reposition themselves to take the strain of the fall (ie from a greater height than a 3rd floor window) then they will generally survive , although a common injury is a broken jaw from their chin hitting the ground when their legs bend to take the strain. Above a certain height the number of fatalities then starts to increase again. As for skin parachutes well that sounds improbable
 
drunken fool said:
i remember watching QI once and they said on there that it's safer for cats to fall from 7th floor window than a 3rd floor window. When falling it takes a while but apparently they spread their legs out and the bits of skin between them sort of act as a paracute.

Of course, i may have just dreamed this :)
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Actually, the 7th floor is the most dangerous for cats on average. Generally, smaller creatures tend to be better at surviving falls than big ones but cats seemed to have the highest mortality rates around the 7th floor regardless of what height they were dropped from.

It's argued that 7th floor height is just short of the height required for a cat to hit terminal velocity. At terminal velocity, the cat apparently relaxes more and can absorb the shock of it's bodyweight (which is obviously quite low), through all four limbs. Whereas, before reaching terminal velocity it is still tense and therefore the shock is more likely to kill it
 
rOAdeh said:
cats seemed to have the highest mortality rates around the 7th floor regardless of what height they were dropped from.
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Slightly ambiguous wording.

It suggests that if you dropped a cat from any height, let's say the 25th floor, for illustrative purposes, it would be most likely to die when it got to the 7th floor.

It's even more confusing if you choose to hypothesise dropping a cat from the 3rd floor, and then having it die at the 7th.
 
Borris said:
Slightly ambiguous wording.

It suggests that if you dropped a cat from any height, let's say the 25th floor, for illustrative purposes, it would be most likely to die when it got to the 7th floor.

It's even more confusing if you choose to hypothesise dropping a cat from the 3rd floor, and then having it die at the 7th.
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perhaps, but that would require a general lacking of any common sense
 
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