Do cats recognize by face or smell?

I saw another stray kitten earlier and I was wondering how my two kittens Orange and Gray would react when they see another kitty probably a week younger. To my surprise, they were were kinda angry and afraid at the same time with the stranger kitty as they make growling noises.

Then the mother of the Orange and Gray seemed to smell the new kitty in the block and was acting strange but she didn't actually see her ( I think) but then when Orange approach her mother, the mother delivered rapid jabs and cat fists right at Orange and started hissing at her, it seemed that the mother had mistaken Orange for the new cat. I was thinking maybe they recognize other cats with their smell first rather than by face and probably the same with humans too?

 

Were they all outside when this kitty showed up? Did the new kitty get too close to the kittens? I'd like to know that. I really like to think cats can recognize us. I mean, my Bob when he was outdoors he used to meow at me everytime he saw me coming out to the yard. I like to beleive he idd that because he recognized it was me and was saying hi. I doubt he could smell me from so far away. I'm sure they can recognize faces and shapes. Otherwise maybe many of them would end up dead if they needed to get too close to sniff strangers. Just my thought tho.

 

I think cats have less of an ability to smell than dogs do. But cats do recognize us. They recognize us as non-threatening or as familiars for them. I think that it takes a quick face recognition, and then it's all based off of smell. If a cat smells something different on you, they tend to get upset, or at least, that's what I've noticed.

 

You're probably right, come to think of it, I didn't think the mothee saw the kitten but it was close enough from her that she could probably smell it, they were inside the house. Anyway poor Kitty he has no friends I'm tempted to keep him as well!

 

an animal (any species), has different facial features just like we do. But we either never learned, or forgot ho to pick up on them. Infants can recognize different chimps because of the different facial features, When you grow up without chimps around to practice the recognition you the ability to recognize the differences. Have you ever heard people say, regarding another race, that they all look alike to them? It isn't just them being mean. It's true if they weren't raised around the different races. They never learn to see the differences whenn they look at them.