‘The Lunar Zoomies’ is an excellent name for a psychedelic folk band, and an endearing description of a behaviour noted by some cat owners.
When the Moon is bright, some moggies seem to act even more erratically than usual. They have sudden, wild, high-energy outbursts that are, frankly, quite annoying if you’re not a cat and are trying to sleep.
These outbursts divide opinion.
On the one hand, some say they’re caused by confirmation bias. Cats don’t become more ‘zoomy’. Instead, the bright light of the full Moon disrupts our sleep, so we become more likely to notice their regular nighttime shenanigans.
On the other hand, some think that lunar zoomies are very real. Many wild cats are crepuscular, meaning they are most active at dusk and dawn.
No one has told domestic cats that they’re not wild anymore, so our kitties retain much of their ancestors’ behaviour: they too are crepuscular.
The bright, reflected light of the full Moon is said to mimic the ambience of the twilight hours, and so, the reasoning goes, some domestic cats go into high-energy hunting mode – the lunar zoomies.
What we do know for sure is that during a full Moon, cats have more accidents, and we’re not talking about the litter tray kind.
A 2007 study that examined the timing of around 2,500 emergency visits to the vets by cats (and their owners) found that these trips were more likely to occur during a fuller Moon.
Compared with other days, the risk of emergencies on fuller Moon days (defined as ‘waxing gibbous’ to ‘waning gibbous’) was 23 per cent greater.
So, maybe there’s something to it. More moonlight, more zoomies, more sleep-deprived owners, more vet bills.
Waxing Gibbous and Waning Gibbous are, incidentally, the names of my two rescue cats.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Arthur Gould, via email) 'Why does my cat get zoomies on a full Moon?'
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