Highlights

• Cats were tested for their body-awareness with incrementally decreasing openings

• Cats did not make a priori decisions when they approached tall, narrow openings

• However, cats hesitated to approach and enter uncomfortably short apertures

• Trial-and-error or body-awareness are both ecologically valid strategies for cats

Ecological validity ought to be considered as the gold standard in ethological research. The modular concept of self-representation in nonhuman animal species has led to several discoveries where researchers showed that particular components of representing the self can provide advantages to various animals in specific contexts (e.g., mirror self-recognition in cleaning fish; “body as an obstacle” in elephants; body size awareness in bumblebees.

The results of this study have shown that cats did not react with a priori hesitation when they approached very narrow apertures that were smaller than the cat’s corresponding chest width. Compared to dogs’ reactions, this implies that for cats, body size awareness could have smaller relevance as a mental mechanism when they solve specific aperture tasks.

Cats are mammals with well-developed complex cognition, who have to negotiate various and often dynamic obstacles in their three-dimensional spatial environment. This strengthens the likelihood that cats should possess probably even multiple forms of body awareness (size, shape, and weight).