There are road signs in Japan warning drivers that cats may jump out into traffic.
These signs are typically placed on private property instead of closer to the road where most official road signs are located in Japan. Considering this, as well as Japanese online stores selling these kinds of products, the signs appear to be largely bought and erected by local residents, rather than government officials.
Throughout 2026, a claim circulated online that people in Japan had put up road signs warning drivers about cats jumping out into traffic. Many posts include numerous photos of yellow, diamond-shaped signs in different locations. All the images feature black silhouettes of cats and text in Japanese.
For example, one Instagram post reads, in part (archived), “In parts of Japan, locals have installed adorable warning signs that alert drivers to the possibility of cats suddenly jumping out into the street.”
One sign pictured in that post shows three cats leaping, arms stretched out and wide, across the surface. The accompanying text, translated to English using DeepL, reads, “Beware of Cats Darting Out,” or “Watch for Cats Crossing the Road.”
Reddit (archived) and TikTok (archived) users shared similar posts. One Instagram user who made the claim (archived) said the designs are put in neighborhoods where outdoor cats hang around residential streets, but did not make a distinction between whether local residents or governments erected them. At least one popular post (archived) was labeled with an artificial intelligence content tag, though it is not clear which part of the images in that post were possibly AI-generated.
Some of the pictured signs do exist along roads in Japan and can be found on Google Maps. Some of the signs are also available to buy online. Therefore, we rate this claim true.
Some posts do, however, appear to feature fictionalized signs or real signs placed in non-existent locations, possibly through the use of AI.
While the available evidence points to most of the documented signs being put up by local residents, Snopes emailed the government of Iwate Prefecture, a province where at least one sign is authentically located, and contacted the National Police Agency of Japan, which handles traffic safety and road signs, to ask for confirmation that a government body did not erect the signs. We will update this article if we receive responses.
Finding the signs
At least three signs could be located on Google Maps. Others were photographed and included in posts by Japanese people or people visiting in Japan, but it was not possible to pinpoint their precise locations on Google Maps.
The sign showing the three leaping cats is in Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, which is in the northern portion of Japan’s largest and most populous island, Honshū Island. Notably, that sign appears to be located where someone’s private property meets the sidewalk, whereas other signs along the same road are between the sidewalk and the road itself. This suggests a local resident, rather than government officials, erected the sign, especially considering that a larger warning about cats is placed directly on the wall of another section of that same property.
Another sign can be found in Ino, Kochi Prefecture, which is on the smallest of Japan’s four main islands, Shikoku, toward the south of the country. It features a single silhouette of a cat and text that in English reads, “Beware of Animals.” This style of sign appears to resemble other Japanese “beware of animals” road signs, such as this one featuring a Japanese raccoon dog.
A third sign appears to be located along a road on Iriomote island, a landmass in Okinawa Prefecture near the southwestern tip of Japan. It features the same “beware of animals” text beneath it.
This sign differs from the first two due to the lack of homes surrounding it and its close proximity to the road. That’s because this particular sign warns drivers of the Iriomote cat, a wild cat species that is critically endangered. Road signs put up to help protect the species appear on at least one local travel agency’s website. A stock photo of the same style of Iriomote cat warning sign closely resembles the image of the sign shared on social media.
Signs with named locations
Several other images of such signs could be found on social media, with some users specifying their locations. However, it was not possible to independently locate these signs, therefore they may or may not authentically exist. We will update this article if we find any of them at a later date.
For example, an X post from a Japanese-language user included an image of a yellow, square cat warning sign hanging from a tree on Shikine-jima, an island that is part of the Tokyo Metropolis.
A blog post about travel to the community of Bessho Onsen in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture includes an image of a cat warning side attached to the side of a building.
One comment under an image on Facebook places another cat warning road sign in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture.
Finally, a blog post by someone biking through neighborhoods west of Tokyo includes two images of a cat warning sign attached to a fence post in an alley. Based on the day’s travel described in the blog post, this sign would most likely be in the Wakamatsuchō neighborhood of Fuchū City, Tokyo.
Signs available online
Various cat warning road signs appear on Japanese online retail stores run by Amazon, Yahoo and Rakuten, again supporting the idea that local residents often buy the signs online to place them on private property.
That also means these signs do not necessarily have to appear “only in Japan” like some posts suggest. One of the same signs can be ordered to the U.S. through retailers such as Etsy and in miniature from Amazon’s U.S. platform (archived, archived).
There are also many options for signs available through the search “cat warning road sign” on U.S. Amazon.
