What’s the Surface Area of a Mammal?
A cat is larger than you think.
Think fast: How big is a cat?
It sounds like it should be obvious—a cat should be cat-sized, right? But not if its true surface is considered. If you take into account all the nooks and crannies, a cat’s surface area is actually much larger than you might think. In fact, a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that if you include the hair on various mammals, their respective surface area could increase up to 100 times.
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With that in mind, we’ve put together this quiz. Can you guest how large—surface area-wise—these mammals actually are?
How’d you do? Let us know in the comments!
Meet the Writer
About Brandon Echter
@bechterBrandon Echter was Science Friday’s digital managing editor. He loves space, sloths, and cephalopods, and his aesthetic is “cultivated schlub.”