Your cat has two pockets....

And both are called Henry

Cats don’t have pockets! Yes, they do. Nothing to do with wearing a suit or a skirt. They have two Henry’s pockets, otherwise known as the “cutaneous marginal ear pouches.” In their ears. Here is a picture. Take a look at the nearest ear where you will see this odd little pink pouch on the right hand bottom edge of the ear or pinna.

Racoons don’t have these pockets but palm civet cats, bats and weasels do. Lions and other big cats don’t have them. Some dog breeds have these odd little folds of skin in the ear; some don’t. Humans certainly don’t have them. All cats have Henry’s pockets but they are nonetheless a bit of a puzzle. What do they do? Are they any use to a cat? They don’t feature in The Pictorial Anatomy of the Cat, the only feline anatomy book I possess. Who was Henry? And why did he give his name to this little bit of cartilage? Henry’s pockets are also found in wildcats.

There are a couple of theories about their function but nobody has bothered to do proper research. Cats have the widest range of hearing, from low sounds to high,of any mammal so far tested. One theory is that the pocket somehow helps the cat hear better. Or perhaps they help cat swivel their ears, funnelling the sound into the hear. We don’t know. If you have a theory put it in the comments.

And who was Henry? Which Henry? Maybe it was Joseph Henry, an American physicist and inventor (1787-1878) who headed up the Smithsonian. He had various other things named after him - two mountains and a freshwater fish. Perhaps he gave his name to this tiny fold of skin. That seems odd, though, because of its relative insignificance. After a mountain, a bit of a cat’s ear might not be such a compliment.

I have found another possibility in The Pictorial Anatomy of the Cat. The book’s bibliography mentions a Henry Gray author of Anatomy of the Human Body. Could that be some sort of joke about him. The actual name, Henry’s pocket, only appears in the l970s apparently. Other suggestions are welcome in the comments.

From the cat owner’s point of view, they are worth noticing. Why? Because you may see harvest mites living inside the pocket. They seem to collect there (as well as in other places on the body.) And do if your cat is scratching, take a look and see if it has it has picked up a creepy crawly parasite and put it in its pockets.