Unseen JapanNot Japan-related, but since we all need a distraction from The Horrors, Takaya Suzuki points out a study that examined 408 sleeping cats and found the majority (65%) curl leftwards.
I'm not sure how useful this information is, but...it's yours now.
You can watch the full presentation on what Takaya calls "the happiest research in human history" below. It's actually intriguing as they argue that the sleeping posture could be affected by brain asymmetries that are key to survival.
(Note: Repost as the previous post mistakenly attributed the research to OP. We regret the error. We do not regret the cats.)
random thoughtsIgnoble Award candidate.
Jonathan@unseenjapan I would have thought the left side cat was curled righward. Hmm.
davec 
@jmcrookston @unseenjapan yeah I'm confused as well. Do we know that cats understood the question in order to be able to answer it correctly?
@zebratale @unseenjapan The position of the tuna may have biased the responses!!
If humans have acid reflux, the position of the stomach means lying on our left-side (left side down) is better.
Maybe this issue affects cats too.
@jmcrookston My understanding is it curls in from the left to land in that position hence “leftward.”
@unseenjapan but that's only if it walks in from the left. If it walks in from the right it could still curl clockwise and lie on its left side and be the left hand picture. 🤷
Anyway, was just a curiosity. Good thing they included a picture or people might have gotten in a fight about this 😄
felix (grayscale) 🐺@jmcrookston @unseenjapan "leftward" here seems to mean "sleeping on their left side", not the direction of the curl
John Timaeus@gray17 @jmcrookston @unseenjapan
I'm thinking there may be a lost in translation moment.
By my interpretation leftward means the cats head is counterclockwise (widdershins) from the tail and rightward is clockwise/ sunrise (northern hemisphere centric).
The pictures appear flipped to me.
@gray17 @unseenjapan Ah yes, maybe that is it!
Prickly Pam (D-PA)Same here. I don't get it.
Greg Bell
Mark Shane Hayden@unseenjapan OK but what about in the southern hemisphere? We must do further research! 
Multi Purr Puss 
@msh @unseenjapan 👍 same idea here, +1
dontony@unseenjapan i wonder if this relates to the recent study of spiral galaxies, where 60% of galaxies evaluated spun in a dirrefent direction than our milky way galaxy!
Poloniousmonk
Solitha@unseenjapan But my Tibbers curls both ways. Is she defective?! 😂
ShadSterling@solitha @unseenjapan ambidextrous
@ShadSterling @solitha @unseenjapan
Ambicurltrous
Roel Nieskens@solitha @unseenjapan Is she does it at the same time, she is 🙀
Pablo Rrrrrrr@unseenjapan Now we know the reason why we’re not violently expelled from the planet as it rotates: the cats are holding us. That’s why they toss everything to the floor and sleep on top of us. They’re getting us ready for The Big Stop.
Shit, I said too much.
Lori Olson@unseenjapan @elight ok, but now dogs!
First data point. I’ve got 2x rightwards curling
@unseenjapan May there be a general trend that mammals prefer sleeping positions with the heart being "lower" like humans sleeping turned to the left side and that translates to these cat sleeping positions as well? The difference in heart position may be minimal, but still...
The artist Chloe G@unseenjapan but but the photos are reversed
Oskar im Keller@Fischblog might enjoy this, especially to compare with his recent research question on pasta chirality.
Ville 'cos' R@unseenjapan they could extend the research to two cats: How ofthen do they curl same or opposite ways?
elysia♡
lynn
Robin Syl 🌸
@unseenjapan I mused about needing to do this research for foxes. Glad to see someone did it for cats
Rua
Loyal 
@unseenjapan *peeks at cat* mine is currently righty
@unseenjapan update, she has converted to a lefti
Lee Holmes 
@unseenjapan Actual study for context. "Leftward" means "Sleeping on their left side".
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00507-X
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK@Lee_Holmes @unseenjapan it is left and right with respect to the cats viewpoint (or the same viewpoint when selecting car parts, where left and right are defined relative to someone sitting in the drivers seat)
monkϵyborg 🦾🐵@unseenjapan You promised a distraction from the horrors, and yet the cat under "leftward" is curling rightward and the cat under "rightward" is curling leftward
kernpanik 🐾 🕊️ ☮@unseenjapan Image was taken from Isparta, S. et al. (2025). Lateralized sleeping positions in domestic cats. Current Biology, 35(12), R597-R598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.043
Please note it was published under a CC BY license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
ROTOPE~1 
@unseenjapan there's probably going to be a followup where somebody discovers that some Optical Cat Recognition program misclassified a bunch of the data.
@unseenjapan is there a difference between hemispheres? Maybe Coriolis force has something to do with it? (Or is it Curliolis force?)