CATS AND BOXES

Who Knew? Why Do Cats Love Cardboard Boxes? BY BRYAN GARDNER   

 Take heart, feline enthusiasts. Your cat's continued indifference toward her new Deluxe Scratch DJ Deck may be disappointing, but there is an object that's pretty much guaranteed to pique her interest. That object, as the Internet has so thoroughly documented, is a box. What are we to make of the strange gravitational pull that empty Amazon packaging exerts on Felis silvestris catus ? There's the obvious predation advantage: Cats are ambush predators, and boxes provide great hiding places to stalk prey from (and retreat to). But there's more going on here. For one thing: stress. Providing hiding boxes for a group of newly arrived cats at a Dutch animal shelter while depriving another group of boxes entirely, ethologist Claudia Vinke of Utrecht University in the Netherlands found a significant difference in stress levels between cats that had boxes and those that didn't. In effect, the box cats got used to their new surroundings faster, were far less stressed early on, and were more interested in interacting with humans. It makes sense when you consider that the first reaction of nearly all cats to a stressful situation is to withdraw and hide. "Hiding is a behavioral strategy of the species to cope with environmental changes," Vinke said. Astute feline observers will note that many cats seem to pick other odd places to relax in addition to boxes. Some curl up in a bathroom sink. Others prefer shoes, bowls, shopping bags, coffee mugs, empty egg cartons, and other small, confined spaces. Which brings us to the other reason your cat may like particularly small boxes: It's cold out. According to a 2006 study by the National Research Council, the thermoneutral zone for a domestic cat is 86 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the range in which cats don't have to generate extra heat to keep warm or expend energy on cooling. That range also happens to be 20 degrees higher than ours, which explains why it's not unusual to see your neighbor's cat sprawled out on the hot asphalt in the middle of a sunny summer day. It also explains why many cats may enjoy curling up in tiny cardboard boxes and other strange places. Corrugated cardboard is a great insulator, and confined spaces force the cat to ball up, which in turn helps it to preserve body heat. As the same NRC study explains, most cats' housing areas are around 72 degrees Fahrenheit, a good 14 degrees colder than a domestic cat's minimum thermoneutral temperature. So there you have it: Boxes are insulating, stress-relieving comfort zones where cats can hide, relax, sleep, and occasionally launch a sneak attack against the huge, unpredictable apes they live with.