Cat owners probably think they’ve got their pet’s language figured out. The meow that means food. The meow that means open the door. The meow that means you’re late, and this will be remembered. But according to new research, the sound we fixate on tells us less about who a cat actually is than the one we tend to take for granted.
The purr.
A study published in Scientific Reports suggests that purring carries more reliable information about a cat’s identity, personality, and internal state than meowing does. Meows, it turns out, are complicated. Purrs are surprisingly precise.
Researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the University of Naples Federico II analyzed vocalizations from domestic cats and five wildcat species, including cheetahs and pumas. They used automated speech recognition tools designed initially for human voices to ask a simple question. Could a computer correctly identify individual cats based on sound alone? It could. But it did better with purrs.
“Humans pay particular attention to meowing because cats mainly use these sounds towards us,” said Danilo Russo, an ecologist at the University of Naples Federico II, in a statement reported by Newsweek. “But after we closely examined the acoustic structure, the uniform purr turned out to be the better means of identifying different individuals.”
Meowing, the study suggests, has evolved into a flexible, crowd-pleasing signal shaped by domestication. Cats adjust it depending on context and audience. It’s adaptable, expressive, and often theatrical. That makes it effective for communication, but unreliable as a fingerprint.
Purring is totally different. It shows up early in life, long before cats learn to manipulate humans with sound. Kittens purr while nursing. Adult cats purr during close contact, stress, and recovery. According to the researchers, its structure has stayed stable across wild and domestic species, which makes it a better indicator of individuality.
“Each cat in our study had its own characteristic purr,” said Anja Schild, an ethologist at Freie Universität Berlin. “Purring often occurs in relaxed situations, such as when petting or in close contact with a trusted person.”
The team also compared domestic cats to wild relatives using recordings from a large animal sound archive. The result reinforced the idea that purring predates human influence, while meowing has bent itself around life indoors.
None of this means your cat’s meows are meaningless. They’re still excellent tools for getting your attention. But if you want to understand who your cat actually is, not just what they want, the answer might be vibrating softly on your chest while you scroll your phone.
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