Research overview: detecting air currents with feline whiskers

Whiskers respond not only to direct contact but to subtle movements of air, allowing cats to sense nearby objects and motion without touching them. This overview surveys how vibrissae detect air currents and the disturbances created when the cat moves near a surface or when something moves close by. This airflow sensitivity can alert a cat to the proximity of obstacles or prey in darkness and may contribute to its awareness of its immediate surroundings. The survey relates this capacity to the delicate mechanoreceptors of the follicle-sinus complex, which register even slight whisker deflections. It frames air-current detection as an extension of the whisker sense beyond contact into a kind of near-field flow sensing. Understanding this ability deepens appreciation of how much information cats gather through their whiskers, perceiving not just what they touch but the moving air that signals the presence and motion of things just out of reach.