Why Do Cats Have 9 Lives?

Whether or not you are a cat owner, you’ve probably heard the myth of cats having nine lives. It’s a belief that goes back many centuries and across many cultures.

The question that remains on everyone’s mind; is it true? Do cats really have nine lives?

Do cats have 9 lives?

Cats do not have nine lives. They just have one like all other living beings.

The myth of cats having multiple lives stems from their remarkable biology, their abilities, and our ancestors’ desire to find explanations for what they didn’t fully understand and attribute those to sorcery or ancient myths.

Where did the myth come from?

Cats have a lot of things going in their favor when it comes to surviving.

Cats are built to last

They are incredibly fast creatures (indeed, the fastest animal on land is a cheetah), have lightning-quick reflexes, are very flexible, and are pretty light-weight, even considering their size.

The reflexes and speed allow cats to escape some pretty hairy situations that other animals would probably have been too slow to react to.

The surface area-to-weight ratio means they can withstand longer falls than other creatures. Meanwhile, their flexible backbones allow them to withstand some injuries that would immobilize or incapacitate less flexible animals.

Additionally, cats possess impressive jumping skills, unsurpassed climbing skills, and well-developed navigational skills.

When you put all of this together, you get an animal that is not only highly resilient to injury but also has the reflexes and speed to get itself out of seemingly impossible situations.

Cats have us as their guardian angels

Another piece of the puzzle is the cat’s popularity with humans. 

We have been fawning over our feline friends for centuries since the days of Ancient Egypt. Because of this, cats have spent a lot more time around humans than most other creatures in the animal kingdom.

That means that cats are more likely to escape seemingly certain death due to their own abilities; people are also more likely to witness them escaping seemingly inevitable death, which helps establish their death-defying nature in our culture.

Additionally, when cats get hurt, often a human will come to their aid and try to patch them up.

Why nine lives?

The natural follow-up question would be, why is the myth “nine lives“? Why not four or twelve?

After all, the chances of anyone witnessing a cat defy death nine times in a row throughout history—even as long as history is—is quite slim.

There is no record of the exact origin so, there isn’t a definitive answer as to why a cat has nine lives. However, we can make some educated guesses.

9 is a significant number in many cultures

The number ‘nine’ is something of a significant number in our culture, one with a certain mystical quality. And, when you’re talking about an animal having multiple lives, it certainly has a mysterious ring.

This theory is backed up by the fact that other parts of the world—particularly Spanish and Arabic parts of the world— traditionally have the same myth about the number seven, not nine.

This is likely just because the number seven holds the same mystical significance in those cultures as nine does for ours.

So, we can be sure that the nine lives myth has ancient origins.

What is so special about nine?

With the above in mind, why is nine so culturally significant?

One of the earliest examples of nine being a significant number is that of the Egyptian sun god, Ra, who would take the form of the “Great Tomcat” and –according to the legend– gave rise to eight other gods, making for a total of nine gods.

The nine lives of the Great Tomcat is one possible source of the association between 9 and cats.

It doesn’t hold much water as a direct source due to the aforementioned significance of the number seven in the Arabic-speaking world, but it is an early link between cats and nine.

In a more general sense, the number nine symbolizes divine completeness in Hinduism and is a lucky number in Chinese culture. 

Greek mythology speaks of nine muses, while Norse mythology holds that the universe is divided into nine realms.

Evolutionary protection

This part isn’t specific to cats, which is why it’s all the way down here, but rather it is a trait common in small mammals.

From an evolutionary viewpoint, for a creature like a cat—or a rodent of some kind—to show signs of weakness is essentially a death sentence. Hurt animals in the wild are easy pickings for predators, so it pays for those animals not to show signs of weakness.

Like many other small mammals, cats often do not show signs of injury if they can help. Of course, if a cat has a broken leg, it can’t hide that, but they would rather keep things under wraps if possible.

In some cases, the injury might be fatal, and the cat will seem unharmed until it dies. In other cases, a cat might sustain an injury that it can recover from, but it hides the effects of the injury and so seems fine. And, over time, it heals and is fine.

This is in stark contrast to dogs, which evolved from the much larger and more predatory wolf. Given how dangerous a wolf can be, there is less of an evolutionary imperative to hide their pain and more of a drive to attack. This is why dogs can become violent when injured.

Our Final thoughts

So, cats don’t have nine lives, unfortunately.

It turns out they are just very good at getting out of sticky situations and very good at hiding the signs of an injury on those few occasions when they are not quite fast enough.

If you want to find out how old your cat can live in its current life? Have a look at our article titled: How Long Do Cats Live?

Don’t confuse it with luck, however. Cats escape those situations through speed, reflexes, and heightened senses. Curiosity might kill the cat, but it has to be really fast to catch it.

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