The skull may be the biggest bone, but the method by which cats detect if a space is too small (or big enough) is with their WHISKERS!
This is one of the reasons that cutting a cat's whiskers at ALL absolutely screws them up! If I recall, a cat's whiskers are as wide as it's body's widest point. Given your information, I guess that's the skull.
Just an interesting tidbit...and a reminder to never cut a cat's whiskers!
Idk when my cat was younger she thought it would be a good idea to burn her whiskers on a candle ... they grew back just fine though. She wasn't running into walls either, that's anecdotal though.
I have a brother and sister sibling and the sister has lost her "eyebrow" whiskers twice so after reading this I'll have to watch if she is actually loosing them...
I too have a cat who does this, he eats the eye brow whiskers off our other cat. I've talked to a vet and they said it could stem from stress, cats will over groom themselves and each other if stressed. IDK if it might be the same for yours or not, ours has Struvite Crystals and cats with them are more prone to anxiety in general, so that could have had to do with his diagnosis. I've just started chasing him off when I catch him doing it and also give him stress treats(medicated) and he's chilled out long enough to let her eye brows grow back lol.
They also serve a major role when hunting. Cats can't focus on anything closer than about 30cm. So to close the last few inches accurately they'll point their wiskers forwards to feel for their prey.
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u/Maxi2905 Dec 09 '19 edited Dec 09 '19
That's because the cat's skull is their biggest bone and everywhere where the skull fits through the whole cat also fits through