Inside a Cat's Body: teacher key

Cats, grade 7 edition, written for 7th grade. Why do cats purr? Scientists once had one idea about how a purr is made. See how a cat's flexible body, claws, whiskers and eyes work, and how cats came to live with farmers.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did scientists think for about half a century about how a purr is made?
   • The tail makes it
   • Muscles of the voice box tighten and relax in a steady rhythm (answer)
   • The paws make it
2. Why can a cat slip through narrow spaces?
   • It has no collar bone and its shoulder blades lie along its sides (answer)
   • It has no whiskers
   • It has short claws
3. What does crepuscular mean?
   • Most active at night only
   • Most active at dawn and dusk (answer)
   • Most active at noon
4. What does the cat burial in Cyprus show?
   • A person and a cat were buried together 9,500 years ago (answer)
   • Cats came from China
   • Cats cannot be tamed
5. Which cat family member has been domesticated?
   • The lion
   • The tiger
   • The house cat (answer)

Words

• purr: soft cat hum
• vertebrae: backbone pieces
• crepuscular: active at dusk
• domesticated: tamed over generations
• vibrissae: whiskers