Cats are one of the oldest pets that humans have domesticated in their lives, but there are many information that some people do not know about cats.
A cat is an animal that is more attached to the place than with people, so if there is a cat living in the house, then a new inhabitant comes, then he continues to live with him, quite unlike the dog, so his bond is with the person himself.
There are lines and dots at the front of the cat’s nose, which have a soft feel like a sponge. If you use a magnifying glass, you will see those lines like human fingerprints, which differ in shape from one cat to another and cannot be the same.
There are 30 muscles in one ear of the cat, and these muscles enable the cat to move each ear within a full 180 degree range.
Researchers Alexis Noel and David Hu of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta observed the cats while cleaning their fur on their tongue, and stopped at the tongue function for this process. Actually, cats spend a lot of their lives caring for their fur through their tongue, and this is what prompted the researchers to conduct their study, which published results in the journal "Broadsides" of the American Academy of Sciences.
The researchers pointed out that "cats spend up to 24% of their waking period caring for their fur, and that care includes excluding lice, removing dirt and separating fallen hair, in addition to moisturizing the body."
The researchers emphasized that "caring for a cat's fur is a challenge because the fur contains two layers, namely, the upper protective fur and the lower fur that is thicker and shorter hair, which performs the function of heating."
Pointing out that "to take care of the undercoat, cats' tongues contain hundreds of serrated hooks of keratin, which are known as papillae, and are usually facing downwards."
During the study, the researchers used a special imaging technique to observe the cats before and during their licking of their fur. And the discovery of each of Noel, which is 4 stages of licking, which are: extending the tongue outward, fully extending the surface of the tongue, including hardening of the tissues of the tongue, then real licking and pulling the tongue during which the tongue is joined lightly in the form of a letter (U).
The analysis of the study showed that “the papillae erect when the tongue is attached, which increases the area of contact with the fur.” He also indicated that “while a cat licking its fur, the tongue travels a distance of 6.3 centimeters per second on average, and if the average tongue’s velocity is 22 centimeters per second, then the process Licking lasts much less than a second.
Also, the researchers studied the tongues of different types of cats, and found that these tongues have large papillae with less density, especially in the anterior central part.
They pointed out that "the height of these papillae in domestic cats is very large, reaching 2.3 mm on average, and it increases in lions and tigers by a not large difference, although it is more than 30 times heavier than these cats."
In addition, cats shrink their fur when licking in a way that makes them able to reach the undercoat, as the fur in some domestic cats shrinks from 37 to 1.2 mm on average. In this context, the two researchers pointed out that "reducing the thickness of their fur is a problem for Persian cats, which are known for their long hair, which merges their fur to about 2.6 mm, and this thickness is very large on the papillae."
Although these papillae contain only 5% of the volume of saliva of the tongue, their height makes it possible to distribute this amount along the roots of the bronchi. Therefore, the researchers pointed out that "this saliva contains enzymes that can remove blood and any contaminated bodies, in addition to that the saliva moisturizes the skin when evaporated."
Also, the researchers revealed that caring for the cat’s fur contributes to controlling its temperature by about a quarter.
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