--- title: Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes and grooming — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes and grooming», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A pet cat is a small hunter that lives on your sofa, and almost everything about its body is built for creeping up on pre --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes an… # Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes and grooming Lesson 197 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/0/) — A pet cat is a small hunter that lives on your sofa, and almost everything about its body is built for creeping up on prey in dim light. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/1/) — Its whiskers are feelers that tell it whether a gap is wide enough, its eyes shine in headlights because a mirror layer inside them catches every bit of light, and its tongue is a comb. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/2/) — Stroke a cat on your lap and you feel a low rumble through its body: the purr. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/3/) — It usually means a happy cat, but cats also purr when they are hurt or frightened. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/4/) — A cat that sleeps all afternoon is not lazy: like its wild relatives it saves energy for the hunting hours at dawn and dusk. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/5/) — A cat purrs by making the muscles of its voice box twitch very fast as it breathes in and out, which makes a rumbling vibration. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/6/) — Cats purr when content, but also when hurt, ill or scared, perhaps to calm themselves; a mother cat purrs while feeding, which seems to keep the kittens close and calm, and kittens can purr when only a few days old. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/7/) — Whiskers are thick, deep-rooted hairs full of nerves; a cat uses them to judge whether it fits through a gap, and they must never be cut. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/9/) — A cat's eyes shine green or yellow in headlights because a mirror layer at the back of the eye bounces light through again, so cats see in about one sixth of the light we need, but not in total darkness. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/10/) — In bright sun a cat's pupils shrink to thin slits to let in very little light, and in the dark they open into huge circles. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/11/) — Cats spend a large part of their waking time grooming, and their tongues are covered in tiny backward-pointing hooks that work like a comb. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/13/) — Cats sleep about twelve to sixteen hours a day and are most active at dawn and dusk, when their prey is too. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/15/) — Cats scratch to keep their claws in good shape and to leave scent from glands in their paws; a scratching post near the spot they like can save the sofa. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/16/) — Adult cats rarely meow at each other and talk to other cats mostly with smells, looks and body; they meow mostly to people, and each cat develops its own meows for its own family. - ← previous: [Working dogs: guide, sniffer, sheep, rescue and helper dogs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/196-working-dogs-guide-sniffer-sheep-rescue-and-helper-dogs/) - next →: [Cats as hunters: presents on the doormat and why Tom never catches Jerry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/198-cats-as-hunters-presents-on-the-doormat-and-why-tom-never-catches-jerry/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)