The cat, which imitated its owner's movements, impressed the audience with its high intelligence

Cats can recognize and then imitate human behavior on command. As simple as it may seem, such interspecies mimicry has previously been observed in only a few animals, such as killer whales, monkeys, dolphins and dogs, and is thought to require complex cognitive abilities to perform it.

In 18 experiments, Ebisu, an 11-year-old cat, repeated her owner Fumi Higaki's actions 81% of the time, including spinning, touching the same toy, opening a small box, and changing posture. According to scientists, it was especially interesting to watch how the cat tried to repeat the movements characteristic of humans. As Higaki raised her arms high, Ebisu stood on her hind legs and raised both paws up.

"Based on the behavior of the cat, we conclude that it is able to recognize different parts of the human body and project the demonstrator's movements onto its own body, at least to some extent," the authors of the study concluded.