'Cats: Predators to Pets' exhibit opens at Chicago's Field Museum

We snuggle with our cats, give them anti-anxiety medicines when they're moody, buy them floor-to-ceiling scratching "trees" that they totally ignore in favor of shredding a brand new leather sofa.

We open a door to let them out, let them in — and out again — all in the space of 10 minutes.

It turns out, we humans are only doing what has come naturally to us for thousands of years.

"The Egyptians dressed their treasured cats in jewels and fed them treats fit for royalty," we learn from a new exhibit at the Field Museum titled "Cats: Predators to Pets."

"Cats were so special that those who killed them, even by accident, were sentenced to death," an exhibit placard tells visitors.

If you consider cats "special" — or even if you just sometimes wonder "Why the heck is that cat acting so weird?" — then you'll likely find something here to intrigue you.

We learn about big cats, little cats, domesticated cats, wild cats — the latter found all across the globe, except for at the poles and in Australia and New Zealand. The exhibit winds through spaces filled with taxidermy mounts of lions, tigers, leopards — lounging, feasting, snarling or pouncing on unsuspecting prey.

On huge video screens, cats stalk mice and birds, and perhaps most dramatically, a group of lions closes in on a giraffe, kicking out, but soon succumbing to an inevitable fate. (The camera cuts away before any blood is spilled.)

The exhibit, created by the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, aims to appeal to curious cat lovers.

"You can see your cat in the large cats, and hopefully that draws you closer to wild cats and supporting them too," said Anastasia DeMaio, a Field exhibition developer.

Or as Anderson Feijo, assistant curator of mammals at the Field, puts it: "All of the sneaking behind you, or liking to play and (being) very active during the night — these all reflect a wild cat's behavior in nature."

Perhaps you've wondered why your cat is always sleeping? They're only doing what their ancestors (and wild cats today) did.

"A carnivorous diet enables cats to spend little time eating because their energy needs are quickly met," the exhibit tells us. "However, the effort required to find and capture prey must be compensated by long periods of rest. Some cats doze for as much as 20 hours a day."

Some meals are easier to catch than others. The exhibit tells us that a lion's success rate hunting a wildebeest is about 30%; it's only 11% when stalking a zebra.

And it's not true that all cats hate water. The fishing cat, found in southern Asia, dives face-first into the water to snatch out fish.

"It will use water, for example, to camouflage itself and surprise its prey," Feijo said.

Another interesting fact: Of the estimated 600 million domesticated cats in the world, about 480 million are feral.

Many cats in the wild are endangered, largely due to a shrinking natural habitat. But domesticated cats cause their own kind of problems, killing about 2.4 billion birds annually in the United States. That's about four times the number of birds killed when they fly into windows, according to the exhibit.

The exhibition opens to the public Friday.

NOTE: The Field Museum is giving cat lovers the chance to make their cat's photo part of the exhibition. Each month throughout the run of the exhibit, cat owners can submit themed images of their cats. Field Museum judges will narrow submissions to 10 finalists to appear on the exhibition wall; a public vote will determine three finalists who will receive four all-access passes to visit the exhibition. Find more information at https://fieldmuseum.io/ThatsMyCat.