Cats Skin and Coat

The cats coat is very much admired and it's the main way to identify the breed. But also apart from beautiful, and plays a strictly functional role: It acts as a barrier between the cat and his environment, and protects him from damages from the heat, cold, winds and rain. For the cat owners, the aspect of the hair is often the best indicator of his companions' general health.

Cats coat is formed of up to 200 hairs per square mm. Safe on some breeds and the Rex, which structure is completely different, the coat is composed of 3 different types of hair. The primary guarding hairs are the longest and hardest, and form the exterior layer. Its numbers are almost double on the back and the sides than on the thorax or the abdomen, and its roots are lodged in individual follicles connected with the nervous system. This type of hair is the one that reacts before any stimulus of anger, fear, cold and the excitement of pursuit, bristling all and giving the cat an aggressive aspect, though it also responds to air currents, as part of the cats sensorial system.

Intermingling with the other, there are the secondary guarding hairs, somewhat shorter and slightly wider at the tip, that grow in locks inside the follicles. And under all, the wool like coat or sub-hair, that act as additional isolating covering that he needs, because opposite to dogs, cats don't have a layer of fat to protect them.