- Located above the eyes, on the cheeks and muzzle and on the chin and lips, the facial vibrissae are especially useful in the dark. Just as a cat's owner might rely on outstretched hands to grope around a pitch-black room, a feline navigates through the darkness of night with its whiskers leading the way.
- Whether in the wilderness or the family room, the facial vibrissae will register any minute shift in an air current, helping the cat skirt round a tree or the leg of a chair.
- These whiskers also serve as guides to gauge the distance between two objects, telling the cat whether or not it can squeeze between them without getting stuck.
- Because facial whiskers are so closely related to nocturnal vision, those sported by domestic cats and wild night hunters such as leopards are proportionally longer than those of daytime hunters such as cheetahs.
- Losing or breaking a whisker can diminish hunting prowess in a cat; the animal may even bump into objects at night until a new whisker grows to replace the absent one.
- The superciliary whiskers above the eyes and the genal whiskers on the cheeks are less rigid and distinctly less mobile than the mystacials. They play an important, but less spectacular role. Whenever these whiskers are touched, they cause the lids to blink, thus protecting the eyes from injury.
Cats can control the movement of their whiskers, especially the long and rigid whiskers, called mystacials, that protrude sideways from the muzzle. Because their eyes cannot focus well on objects close-up, such as prey they hold in their mouths, cats will rotate these whiskers down and around to check the captive for
signs of life. The chin and lip, or mandibular, whiskers help the cat direct the killing nape bite. When eating or fighting, cats pull their whiskers back and out of food or harm's way. At night, they push the mystacials and mandibulars forward to use as sensors while they navigate through the darkness.