Cats make a variety of sounds to communicate with the people and animals around them. Meowing, principally directed at humans, is a call for attention (or food), while hissing or growling at other cats or animals indicates stress and hostility. But what about the quiet chattering noise cats sometimes make at prey?
"It's very hard to say what exactly is going on, but it doesn't appear to be communicating to us or to other animals," cat behaviorist Mikel Delgado told Live Science. Cats' independence makes them particularly difficult to study in the lab, so there are no current studies directly investigating this behavior. However, cat owners and researchers have come up with a number of possible explanations for this cute chatter.
