Cats Rarely Meow at Other Cats — Do They Save Their Voices for Us? Here's What We Know

You may have heard that cats meow only for their humans. But is this true? While acknowledging that there are groups of experts who support the idea, Carly Moody, animal science researcher at the University of California Davis, says, “We just don’t have enough scientific evidence to know if that’s true or not.”

Moody, whose lab is currently studying human-animal interaction, says that most research on these questions is based largely on owner reports of their interactions with their cats and of their cats' interactions with other household members, including other pets. So, unfortunately, this information is necessarily biased and narrow in scope.

But there may be a way to find out more about cat communication.

Read More: Purrs Convey Cats' Identities Better Than Meows — Domestication Reveals Why

How Do Cats Communicate?

In any case, smell, not sound, is the primary way cats communicate. When cats rub their faces against your hand or your sofa, they’re rubbing their pheromone glands, depositing scent messages and picking up information, and maybe even telling you they love you.

In a 2002 paper in the journal Anthrozoös, the authors wrote, “It has been suggested that cats rub against their human companions for social reasons, as they do with other cats in a group environment, and that the resultant scent exchange increases the cat’s feeling of comfort and security within its home environment.”

Vocalizations, such as meows, are thought to be much less important than these scent exchanges, says Moody.

Chatting With Your Cat

But it’s possible that, for some cats at least, living with a human can bump up the importance of vocal communications. After all, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, as the old saying goes.

Moody points out that some research suggests that kittens learn to vocalize with meows when they’re young. A study published in the journal Developmental Psychobiology in 2016 found that very young kittens communicate vocally with their mothers, and can even tell their mom’s voice from other cats’ voices.

When kittens start interacting with people, they learn how to communicate with us — and we are a very vocal species.

“We tend to talk to them, so they learn that’s an effective way to communicate with us and get what they need,” Moody says.

But do cats use meows to communicate with other cats? One way to find that out would be to study colonies of feral cats. Some research on feral colonies was done in the 1960s and 70s, says Moody, but those results aren’t very useful.

“They just didn't report research methods very well, and so it's kind of hard to understand what really happened and what was being assessed,” she notes.

New Ways of Studying Cat Communication

However, now that webcams are cheap and shelters are beginning to house cats socially rather than in individual cages, researchers might have another opportunity to get this right.

“We actually are doing some shelter-cat research in my lab, and what we found is that shelter cats are way less active during adoption times and when the facility is open, and they are super active at night,” says Moody.

“We're looking at pairs of cats that are housed together. And so it would be really interesting to see if they're vocalizing to each other, like during those nighttime interactions when there's no one around except for those two cats,” Moody adds.

The Power of the Meow

Whether or not it’s used exclusively with humans, a cat’s meow is a powerful thing.

“Cats have managed to wrap us around their little paws by mastering the meow,” says Jackson Galaxy, cat behaviorist and author, whose YouTube channel offers advice about living with cats.

One of the interesting things about cats is that they self-domesticated, Galaxy says. “They curried favor in homes where the food was good, and the house was warm. They did what they had to do.”

And that sweet meow was likely very useful in that process.

“The sound of the meow is something that humans respond to, and so cats continue that cycle of self-domestication and playing humans like fiddles by doing the meow,” says Galaxy.

Read More: What Cats Are Revealing About How COVID May Linger in the Human Immune System

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• This article references information from a study that was published in Developmental Psychobiology: Mother–offspring recognition in the domestic cat: Kittens recognize their own mother's call
• This article references information from a study that was published in Anthrozoös: Responses of cats to petting by humans