Cats purr when they are happy, even while they eat. A cat can also purr when it is hurt, hungry or nervous. So a purr does not always mean a happy cat. A mother cat purrs to her kittens. This is thought to help them feel calm.

Kittens learn to be comfortable with people and other animals most easily between 2 and 7 weeks of age. Their play is practice for hunting. They stalk, chase, pounce and bite.

People and cats have lived together for thousands of years. Wildcats probably came to early farming villages because grain stores drew mice and other rodents. The cats hunted them.

Cats traveled the world on ships, where they helped keep rodents away.

Ancient Egyptians honored cats. The goddess Bastet could appear as a cat or with a cat's head. Paintings from ancient Egypt show cats living with people.

Most ancient cats had stripes, and spotted cats were uncommon until the Middle Ages. Today, cat breeds look very different. Yet the smallest and largest breeds weigh only about 5 to 10 pounds apart.

A 2013 estimate said roughly 114 million cats live in the contiguous United States, 84 million of them pets. Pet cats live about 12 to 14 years on average, as of November 2026. Some live 20 years or more if they are well cared for.

Words to know

• purr: soft cat hum
• rodents: mice and rats
• honored: treated with respect
• goddess: female god
• Bastet: Egyptian cat goddess