Research overview: multisensory integration during the hunt

Feline predation draws on vision, hearing, smell, and touch in a coordinated sequence, and the brain integrates these channels to guide the hunt. This overview surveys multisensory integration in hunting cats, in which long-range detection by sight and sound gives way to close-range guidance by whiskers and touch as the cat closes in for the kill. Each sense contributes where it is most reliable, with hearing locating hidden prey, vision tracking movement, and whiskers steering the final bite when the eyes cannot focus. The survey relates this integration to brain regions that combine sensory inputs to direct attention and action. It discusses how the senses hand off responsibility across the stages of an attack. Understanding multisensory integration shows that the cat is not a single-sense hunter but an animal that fluidly blends modalities. It frames feline predation as a smoothly orchestrated collaboration among the senses, each tuned to its role.