Cats are amazing creatures that are very difficult not to love. Moreover, cats are not only cute, but also truly amazing creatures from the point of view of biology. Take, for example, their ability to deftly squeeze into the most unexpected places. Surely many would be interested to know what exactly is the secret of feline flexibility and how these animals manage to crawl into the holes in the slits, which are visually much smaller than them.
Briefly, the main principle of feline flexibility can be formulated something like this: if the head goes through, then everything else will go through. If the answer is more detailed, then the exceptional features of cats in matters of "seepage" lie in the specifics of the structure of their musculoskeletal system. In this respect, felines are actually unique creatures.
The first and foremost is, of course, the structure of the cat's skeleton: the feline spine has the ability to twist 180 degrees without any harm to itself. This is because cats have round vertebral discs. They rotate plastically and freely, including due to the large number of "details" in the spine. Just think: in the human skeleton there are 33 vertebrae, in the skeleton of a cat, with much smaller dimensions - 30. In addition, cats have a very narrow pelvis and not fully developed clavicle bones.
The second important ingredient in feline flexibility is muscles and joints. The former in cats are very strong and flexible, the latter are extremely mobile. All this, coupled with the fact that the limbs of the animal do not have a rigid fixation with the body, allows the feline to create real miracles of acrobatics. Before penetrating, the cat evaluates the size of the gap, then tries to stick its head in. Since under normal conditions it is the head that is the largest part of the body, then it is worth going through the gap, as it becomes clear that everything else will go through.
Continuing the topic, read about 6 effective ways to wean a cat from the bad habit of sharpening claws on furniture.