Purrs Convey Cats’ Identities Better Than Meows — Domestication Reveals Why

Cat owners know their feline companions’ precious purrs and meows by heart, and they’re probably not surprised that both sounds have their own meanings. A talkative cat meows for various reasons: to greet someone, ask for treats or even complain about an inconvenience. Purrs, while less vocally flexible, tell a different story.

A new study published in Scientific reports showed that a cat’s purr reveals much more about its individual identity than a meow. By examining the acoustic characteristics of the two sounds, researchers determined that distinct purrs are easier to recognize in individual cats, while meows fluctuate widely depending on what a cat needs or feels. These differences highlight the lasting influence of domestication on cats, particularly in the way they “speak” to us.

Learn more: Why people love their cats chaotic and misbehaving

The evolving language of cats

Cats were probably domesticated around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East and have since evolved a wide range of meows to suit their needs. Cats don’t meow as much when interacting with each other; if they meow, it will likely be during territorial conflicts or marital attraction, and it is more common in cats that have not yet reached full maturity.

Rather, a meow is the perfect vocal strategy for domestic cats to communicate with humans. Over time, they have acquired the ability to change the duration, frequency and tone of their meows to get what they want from us.

Purring, for its part, has always been linked to social bonds between cats. Unlike the variability of meows, purrs are low-frequency sounds that remain constant. In most interactions with humans and other cats, they reflect a sense of calm, although they are sometimes used to soothe when a cat is afraid or in pain.

Purrs vs. Meow

For the new study, researchers recorded the vocalizations of 27 individual cats in 2020 and 2021, collecting audio of meows whenever the cats expressed a desire for food or human attention, and purring whenever they were petted.

Using methods originally developed for automatic speech recognition in humans, the researchers then determined how well a computer could recognize each cat’s vocalizations.

This analysis showed that purrs and meows could both be distinguished individually, but that purrs were the best marker of a cat’s identity. According to the researchers, each recorded cat had its own characteristic purr.

“People mainly pay attention to meows because cats mainly use these sounds towards us,” lead author Danilo Russo, professor of ecology at the Federico II University of Naples, said in a statement. “But after examining the acoustic structure in detail, the constant purring turned out to be the best way to identify different individuals.”

Build a voice connection

The researchers also compared the meows of domestic cats to those of five species of wild cats – the African wildcat, the European wildcat, the jungle cat, the cheetah and the puma – using audio from the animal sound archive at the Berlin Natural History Museum. Using this acoustic data, they found that the meows of domestic cats exhibited much greater variability than those of wild cats, demonstrating once again that domestication caused cats to adapt their meows based on interactions with humans.

Researchers suggest that purrs may reflect a “default” acoustic profile for each cat, shaped by vocal tract characteristics and not emotional influences. Meows, on the other hand, appear to be less important for communicating identity cues and better suited to eliciting specific responses from humans.

“Living with people who were very different in their routines, expectations and reactions likely favored cats that were able to adapt their meows flexibly. Our results support the idea that meows have become a highly adaptable tool for negotiating life in a human-dominated world,” said lead author Mirjam Knörnschild, a behavioral ecologist at the Natural History Museum in Berlin.

Learn more: Cat’s whiskers help them navigate and can tell us what a cat is feeling

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