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House-shaped urns? Alessi shows what a farewell can look like
by Pia Seidel
This study needs your cat videos
7.8.2025
Translation: machine translated
Ruhr University Bochum wants to get to the bottom of previously unexplained cat behaviour. Why they need videos of cat owners and what it's all about.
Nothing fills the smartphone memory of cat parents as quickly as videos of their pets. «Look at Lucky chasing a fly», «Have you ever heard Feli meow like that?», «Look, Jeffrey is fidgeting in his sleep»: Everything has to be captured - I know what I'm talking about.
What can be especially tiring for catless (or cat-free?) friends and Family members is of burning interest to researchers: Ruhr-Universität Bochum - together with partners from Italy, Turkey and Canada - is calling on cat owners to submit videos for a research project.
Tails, paws and sleeping positions
The question is not about random everyday situations, but about the following:
- How the cat holds its tail when greeting you
- Which side the cat sleeps on.
- Which paw it prefers to use to fish treats out of a hiding place (right or left paw).
Cat owners are asked to record short video clips on five consecutive days. These and other information about the cats will be treated confidentially and anonymised. The researchers want to use the material to analyse the animals' body language and draw conclusions about brain processes. In contrast to dogs, there is currently only limited knowledge about tail posture in particular.
However, the initial findings are already intriguing: after analysing the first YouTube videos, the researchers discovered that most cats sleep on their left side. Could this be because they are better able to process everything they perceive on the left in the right, faster hemisphere of the brain? The study aims to investigate these questions.
Not keen on the lab
The researchers hope that their appeal, which is aimed at cat owners in various countries, will result in a broad and diverse sample and thus a solid basis for research. In Germany alone, more than 500 cat owners have already signed up for the project. Videos have also been received from Turkey, Italy and Canada. So we can look forward to seeing what comes to light about the behaviour of our mysterious four-legged friends.
If you also want to take part, you can find more information here.
Header image: Olya Detry/Shutterstock
Darina Schweizer
Senior Editor
Darina.Schweizer@digitecgalaxus.chI love anything with four legs or roots - especially my shelter cats Jasper and Joy and my collection of succulents. My favourite things to do are stalking around with police dogs and cat coiffeurs on reportages or letting sensitive stories flourish in garden brockis and Japanese gardens.
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