Question: Why do cats always land on their feet?

Christina Pagel answered on 18 Jun 2013:

I was just reading about this the other day! Cats have really flexible spines and they do this really clever thing where they first twist their body so their back legs point down and they front legs point up and then once their back legs are point downing they then spin the front legs round so that all four feet are pointing at the ground… They also have a very sensitive sense of balance so they can always tell which way “up” is… it’s this sense of balance that means they can run along fences etc.
They need a bit of time to do turn round in midair though so if they fall from a medium height they don’t always land on their feet! It’s more dangerous for a cat to fall from a first or second floor window than a higher up one!