Do cats really have nine lives?

I guess both of us have heard that saying many times. We don’t really believe it, but there must be a reason for the saying. There is.

You and other animals have a reflex that helps you stay balanced. It is called the righting reflex. This works so neatly that you may not have noticed it. A time to feel it happen is when you are walking and your foot slips. Then a number of muscles in your legs, your back, maybe even your shoulders suddenly work to try to keep your body upright.

Cats are world champions in having a well-developed righting reflex. If a cat starts to fall out of a tree, it twists its whole body in midair and lands on its feet. So, cats often survive falls that would kill most animals. I think that’s where the idea came from that cats may have more than one life.

What I cannot answer is where the nine comes from. It might mean that a cat will survive a bad fall nine out of ten times. Or maybe nine is just a nice number. Or maybe you can think of a better reason.