We have three cat-related items today, and a bit of lagniappe.
From Facebook’s F’d Up Facts (note that the image is AI):
And the information attached to it:
At the Glenturret whiskey distillery in Scotland, there was a cat named Towser. She was a long-haired tortoiseshell. Her job was to keep the place free of mice. She did her job very well. In fact, she was the best mouser in the world. Over 24 years, she is believed to have killed 28,899 mice. That’s about 3 mice every day for her entire career. The Guinness Book of Records officially recognizes her record. She became a legend in the distillery. A statue was even put up to h…
A photo of Towser credited to source at bottom:
The site adds that “even though Towswer had had several successors, none of them have ever been able to match her mousing skills.”
From ScotchWhisky.com,
All hail Towser. In the pantheon of mouse-catching machines, the famous cat from the home of The Famous Grouse reigns supreme, and it’s all about the numbers: almost a quarter of a century on duty at Glenturret, and a frankly mind-boggling 28,899 rodents liquidated.
Towser was a kitten of the ’60s, but seems to have skipped the ‘peace and love’ stuff – and she was still gamely terrorising mice until her death, three weeks short of her 24th birthday, in 1987.
Her longevity is attributed to the addition of a wee dram to her milk every night, although we should say that this is not a form of treatment formally endorsed by the veterinary profession.
If you’ve a calculator handy, you might have worked out that, for Towser to account for 28,899 mice over a 24-year period, she’d have had to kill three or four every day. That’s quite a vermin problem.
The story behind the figures is simple: a team from The Guinness Book of Records observed Towser’s activities for a few days, totted up the corpses and extrapolated the total from there. Not exactly scientific.
But let’s not allow such mundane concerns detract from the legend of Towser; a legend that lives on, both in the form of a statue at Glenturret distillery and, earlier this year, in a distillery bottling named after the mouser supreme.
You can see the official Guinness record here. Towser puts Larry to shame!
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Here’s a video I found on Facebook. It’s basically true (see below), describing a parachute drop of cats into Borneo to control rodents where the native cats may have been exterminated by application of DDT.
The Wikipedia article on “Operation Cat Drop” is here, and here’s a bit of it:
Operation Cat Drop is the name given to the delivery of cats, equipment and supplies by the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force to remote regions of the then-British colony of Sarawak (today part of Malaysia), on the island of Borneo in 1960. The cats were flown out of Singapore and delivered in crates dropped by parachutes as part of a broader program of supplying cats to curb an infestation of rats. The operation was reported as a “success” at the time. Newspaper reports published soon after the operation reference only 23 cats being used. Some unreliable later accounts of the event claim that as many as 14,000 cats were used, but this figure is apocryphal. An additional source references a “recruitment” drive for 30 cats a few days prior to Operation Cat Drop.
Insecticides including dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) were widely used during the 1950s, including in Borneo, as a malaria control measure. The insecticides were intended to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes before they could pass the disease onto humans.
At the time of the cat drop in 1960, newspaper reports indicate that a district in Sarawak was suffering from an infestation of rats, which were destroying crops. It has been suggested that this rat infestation was the result of many of the existing local cats dying due to the use of DDT or other insecticides, and the rat population subsequently increasing as it faced reduced predation from cats. While it has been claimed that these cat deaths resulted from biomagnification of DDT – the cats eating other creatures such as lizards or cockroaches that had in turn been exposed to DDT – this has not been confirmed. Deaths of cats may have been caused by direct exposure to DDT sprayed in dwellings, as opposed to biomagnification.[4]
A nine-minute video about the operation, with pictures and video supplied by AI.
Text for the video is here. And Wikipedia notes the unintended consequences of spraying DDT to control mosquitoes and the malaria they carried. Note that the video gives another but less likely story involving the proliferation of geckos or, alternatively, of caterpillars.
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Finally, a new NYT article dispelling another bit of cat-related “wisdom”: that cats groom each other as a form of friendship and bonding. Not always true! You can read the article here by clicking below, or find it archived here.
An excerpt:
Let’s just say cats have a reputation — of being standoffish, manipulative, maybe even jerks. Here’s more corroborating evidence: Scientists are beginning to think that even seemingly innocent cat behavior — grooming another cat — might not always be nice.
The licking can be a method of subtle torment, according to new research published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.
Mutual grooming, called allogrooming, is widespread in the animal kingdom and found in primates, birds, horses and even insects. The grooming is typically focused on parts of the body that are difficult for an animal to reach on its own, like its back and neck, making the behavior an act of kindness that supports social bonding and wins friends.
Like primates that pick lice from each other’s backs, cats that lick each other have also been considered an indicator of social bonding. “So far, mutual grooming in cats has been categorized as affiliative, or ‘friendly,’ cat behavior,” said Noema Gajdos Kmecova, a cat behavioral scientist at Ghent University and an author of the new study.
Or so we thought.
Morgane Van Belle, another cat behavioral scientist at Ghent University and the study’s lead author, was observing her own cats, Fabio and Giovanni, interacting over a favorite napping spot in the sun and noticed something.
“I saw these weird grooming patterns in my own cats where I thought, This is not super friendly at all,” she said. “Sometimes one cat would lay on the blanket near the window and the other cat would come up and start licking it — but in an annoying way.” The interaction would induce the licked cat to get up and forfeit the sunny spot, she said.
Reader Divy told me she noticed eactly this with her two cats Jango and Boba. A bit more:
To check whether this behavior was more widespread, Ms. Van Belle and her colleagues looked at 53 households across Europe with two or more cats. After telling the pet owners what to look for, the researchers had them submit videos of their cats’ interactions. The scientists then randomly selected a submission from each participant and used statistical analyses to tease apart the hidden nuance in cat-licking behavior.
“It became immediately clear from the analysis that mutual grooming does not mean the same thing in all contexts,” Ms. Van Belle said.
The results revealed two things. The first was consistent with typical grooming behavior: The cats licked each other on the head, neck or ears. In these videos, the cats were much more likely to mimic each other’s body postures, either cuddling together or sitting next to one another before and after the grooming. The licks were clearly friendly gestures.
The other side of the cat-licking coin revealed something more in line with bullying. A subset of the videos showed that licking often preceded conflict. These interactions were defined by differing body postures, where one cat might stand and lick the other sitting cat. The aggressive licks were followed by signs of stress in the licked cat, including staring, yowling, rotating the ears, licking the lips or swiping at the other cat. The results were inconsistent with the prior conception of cat allogrooming.
“Based on our findings, allogrooming is associated with at least two contexts — not only social bonding, but also social tension,” Ms. Kmecova said.
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All hail Towser! She lived a long life. They say that longevity is one of the benefits of living a life with purpose. Towser is a good example. (Well, maybe a little whiskey helped.)
Oooh. I wonder how many cats in Project Cat Drop didn’t survive.
Yes. I read about licking as a form of intimidation. Cats will be cats, after all. And speaking of intimidation, we had two cats: Oscar and Abelard. Abelard was a real pain to live with, and one or another of us would occasionally raise our voices at Abelard. (I know it does no good, but we had no choice in the matter.) Whenever that happened, if Oscar was near Abelard, Oscar would swat Abelard as he walked (or ran) by. It was intimidation!
Long tails. Not good if there’s a rocking chair nearby. Ask The Three Stooges about that: https://youtu.be/o941IE-MeNE?is=18-LZ3iW3l6kqz7l
Almost 29,000 rodents is quite a kill rate. My old orange cat never came close to that amount, but he did one time take down a rabbit almost as big as he was. Then he ate the entire thing, including the bones, except for the fluffy tail and small gut-pile. Until then; I never knew a domestic cat could prey on something that big.
When I was a kid, we fed a feral. He was a big guy; I called him Akela. Once he left a rabbit by the back door as a gift for us.
That Borneo cat airdrop could have terrible unforeseen consequences for the native birds and lizards.
Thank you to the people who rescued the cat with the drone; I’m assuming that is real, not AI.
And thank you for another entertaining Caturday. Loved the stories about Towser and the cat with the longest tail. Both were/are absolutely gorgeous cats, though I’m glad most of mine have been short-haired, given the shedding and furball issues. Mr. Pugsley Addams has a wonderful cat tree!
My cats do tend to groom each other. I had always assumed it was friendly, but now I’ll have to pay more attention to see whether that is actually correct. One of the younger girls intentionally goes up to other cats, lowers her head, and waits to be groomed, and normally the other cats oblige. So that is clearly a friendly gesture.
I’d like to see the evidence that DDT is particularly toxic to mammals.
Here’s what I got when I asked Grok the question.
Is DDT toxic to mammals
Yes, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is toxic to mammals, including humans, though its acute (short-term, high-dose) toxicity is generally classified as slight to moderate, while chronic (long-term, lower-dose) exposure raises greater concerns due to bioaccumulation and effects on the liver, nervous system, reproduction, and potential carcinogenicity.
npic.orst.edu
Acute toxicityDDT interferes with nerve impulse transmission. In laboratory mammals, it produces hyperexcitability, tremors, incoordination, and convulsions.
npic.orst.edu
Oral LD50 values (dose lethal to 50% of test animals) typically range from about 113–800 mg/kg in rats, ~135 mg/kg in mice, ~150 mg/kg in guinea pigs, and ~250 mg/kg in rabbits. These place it in the moderately toxic range by common regulatory categories (e.g., oral LD50 of 50–500 mg/kg).
en.wikipedia.org
It is classified as “moderately toxic” by the U.S. National Toxicology Program and “moderately hazardous” by the World Health Organization based on rat oral LD50 data.
en.wikipedia.org
DDT is poorly absorbed through mammalian skin (dermal LD50 in rats is much higher, often 2,500–3,000 mg/kg or more) compared with insects’ exoskeletons, which is one reason for its relative selectivity as an insecticide.
npic.orst.edu
In humans, accidental high oral exposure has caused prickling of the mouth, nausea, dizziness, confusion, headache, lethargy, incoordination, vomiting, fatigue, and tremors; these effects generally resolve after exposure ends. Controlled human data show symptoms (including convulsions at higher doses) starting around tens of mg/kg.
npic.orst.edu
Chronic toxicity and other effectsDDT and its main metabolite DDE are highly lipophilic and accumulate in fatty tissues of mammals. They can be released during fat mobilization (e.g., starvation or weight loss) and affect the liver and nervous system.
npic.orst.edu
Long-term exposure in laboratory animals causes liver changes and lesions; high or prolonged doses are linked to liver tumors.
npic.orst.edu
Reproductive and developmental effects occur in animals (e.g., impacts on fertility, embryo implantation, offspring survival in rodents). Human data are more limited/mixed but include associations with reproductive outcomes (such as preterm birth or altered lactation in some studies), endocrine disruption (DDE can act as a weak anti-androgen), and possible links to other endpoints like semen quality or diabetes risk in highly exposed groups.
en.wikipedia.org
Cancer classifications:U.S. EPA: probable human carcinogen (based largely on animal liver tumor data).
U.S. DHHS: reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.
IARC: Group 2A (probably carcinogenic to humans, updated assessment).
wwwn.cdc.gov
Occupational and environmental human studies have shown mixed or limited evidence for increased cancer rates overall (some signals for liver or other sites in highly exposed groups; breast cancer associations are inconsistent and often null in broader populations). Acute indirect/environmental exposure is generally considered relatively low-risk for immediate toxicity compared with direct high-dose ingestion.
en.wikipedia.org
Context and caveatsToxicity is dose-dependent. Typical environmental or residual exposures today (post-bans in many countries) are far lower than the doses that produce clear acute effects in animals or historical high occupational exposures. DDT’s persistence, bioaccumulation up the food chain, and stronger documented effects on certain wildlife (especially birds via eggshell thinning from DDE) drove major regulatory restrictions (e.g., U.S. ban in 1972, Stockholm Convention restrictions), alongside human health concerns.
epa.gov
In short, mammals are susceptible to DDT’s neurotoxic, hepatotoxic, and other effects, particularly with sufficient acute or cumulative exposure, even if insects are more sensitive due to absorption and metabolic differences. Regulatory agencies treat it as a substance of concern for both acute and chronic toxicity.
Thank you. That’s about what I was thinking and would not lead one to expect cats to have been dying off from environmental exposure.
I don’t know if I want to drink whisky from Glenturret if the distillery contained over 29,000 mice. Still, Towser was an amazing cat. What would she think of Larry?
My feline family displayed the two types of grooming behavior. My Alpha Kitteh would groom my other four cats daily. He never bullied or intimidated anyone. However, my neediest kitteh would initiate unwanted grooming to get what he wanted. He could be a bully at times.
Thanks for another great Caturday!