• grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      5 个月前

      My cats meow at each other sometimes, especially when surprised or trying to pick a fight, but it’s very different than how they meow at me. And they seem to favor non verbal cues with each other as well.

    • somethingsomethingidk@lemmy.world
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      5 个月前

      From wikipedia

      Adult cats rarely meow to each other. Thus, an adult cat meowing to human beings is generally considered a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens: a call for attention.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        5 个月前

        Cats are not domesticated though or not fully domesticated. They are tame.

        • sparkle@lemm.ee
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          5 个月前

          this is a stupid take especially considering that “tame” usually literally just means domesticated

          1. Not or no longer wild; domesticated

          adjective: 1. (of an animal) not dangerous or frightened of people; domesticated.

          verb: domesticate (an animal).

          reduced from a state of native wildness especially so as to be tractable and useful to humans : DOMESTICATED

          in fact the first definition for “tame” in every dictionary i’ve looked up just has the word “domesticated” as the meaning for tame. “domesticate” and “tame” are also indirectly cognates, they both ultimately derive from PIE *dem(h₂), just “domesticate” is Latinate and “tame” is Germanic, but that’s more of a fun fact than a relevant indicator of meaning.

          we selectively bred cats to fit our wants/needs, they live in our house and pester us to support their lifestyle, what about that isn’t domestication

    • SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip
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      5 个月前

      I believed the tweet for a second, but then I remembered all the times I have woken in middle of the night with the gangs of cats outside my street just meowing to each other

      • Soku@lemmy.world
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        5 个月前

        Those cats on the street are not meowing, they are yowling. That’s a holler to intimidate or to fight, over a territory or hot ladies. That’s not a meow for a human to fill the food bowl or give scritches or something else tame and domestic.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          5 个月前

          it’s honestly ever so slightly worrying that people would think yowling and meowing are the same thing, they can be sorta similar sure but yowls literally sound like a human voice and are slightly unnerving because of it.

          It’s like a parent thinking a baby’s laughter and screaming are the same thing, that’s… not a good sign…

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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        5 个月前

        Maybe “meow” is cat language for “filthy peasant”, so they’re using it to insult each other and to address us.

    • LemmyLogin@lemmy.world
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      5 个月前

      Domesticated cats meow much more than wild ones do, since they’ve learned to do it for us. Cat mothers chirp to their kittens. So while yes, they do, the tweet is right; cats meow to get our attention, and they meow at about the same frequency as babies.

      • glimse@lemmy.world
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        5 个月前

        The incorrect part about the tweet is that they do it to mimic human infants. They do not. They learned that humans love a little meow meow and it gets them attention, it’s that it’s similar to babies

        My friend had a cat whose meow sounded like an elderly pack-a-day smoker.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
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          5 个月前

          Yeah, this implies that every single cat has heard a baby crying. Clearly this is not the case.

          • frezik@midwest.social
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            5 个月前

            Convergent evolution. Their cries naturally mimic the frequencies of human babies. It’s not deliberate, but rather there happened to be a creature that lived around humans that worked this way, and now it’s a survival trait.