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I did a little research to lead me to finding the general range of width for human hair, which is anywhere from around 30µm to 180µm... approximately.

I'm trying to compare this to the width of cat hair, since I have been told (and it does seem a bit evident) that cat hair is much thinner than human hair in general.

I can't seem to find any information on this. Does anybody have any answers?

Note: I apologize if this isn't the right Stack Exchange forum for this question. I wasn't sure where to put it, so I did an SE site search for 'cat' and this one seemed to be the most appropriate.

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  • $\begingroup$ Off hand I don't know, but I actually do know a few books that might have it in it (unfortunately I couldn't find open copies). But if you really want to find out the answer of say your cat, you could do this experiment and let us know. I will post an answer if I find one. $\endgroup$
    – Atl LED
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 18:37
  • $\begingroup$ Google cat hair diameter gives this as top hit (30 micrometers). $\endgroup$
    – Alan Boyd
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 18:51
  • $\begingroup$ Oh Google algorithms. That's the third hit on mine. $\endgroup$
    – Atl LED
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 19:00
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you. Hmmm... I didn't see that when I searched earlier... $\endgroup$
    – vertigoelectric
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 22:20

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There are a few different types of hair on a cat. But I think you are referring to the down hair on the cat. It will also vary on the breed of domestic cat. As a general statement, you can find a lot of quirky characteristics of mammals by looking at early genetics papers where people where trying to find genetic elements to obvious phenotypes.

For the down hairs, you can see "The ‘rex’ type of coat in the domestic cat." Journal of Genetics [0022-1333] Searle, A G and Jude, A C yr:1956 vol:54 iss:3 pg:506

Table 3. Thickness in µ of normal and rex down-hairs

[Type of Cat][Diameter in um][SE of Mean]

Normal          25.8;   1·32;

English rex     16·2;   0·54;

German rex      17·0;   0·50;
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  • $\begingroup$ Ooh that's pretty. Thanks for the edit, I now know how to make tables. $\endgroup$
    – Atl LED
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 20:01
  • $\begingroup$ You're welcome. It's not really a proper table, but the code formatting does make it look nicer. $\endgroup$
    – blep
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 21:57

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