[Animals] These are the reasons why cats lick their fur

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Cats spend a quarter of their waking life washing themselves with their tongues. Why do cats lick their fur?
It should be noted that these cats sleep approximately 14 hours a day, and for their health, they usually spend several hours bathing. These are the reasons why cats lick their fur.

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Why do cats have scratchy tongues?
Cats' tongues contain 300 small, hollow, rigid spoon-shaped papillae that allow them to wet the base of their fur with saliva. This was observed by American researchers with the help of high-resolution cameras.
Until now, the consensus was that these papillae were conical in shape, like claws, the scientists wrote in their paper published a few days ago in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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The papillae actually end in small, hollow, curved tips. This shape attracts and stores the saliva by tension, and it is transferred to the base of the hairs. In addition, having a spoon shape allows them to collect more saliva and carry the liquid to their skin, without it remaining on the surface of the hair.

Why do cats lick themselves?
Cats lick themselves to maintain their fur to prevent matting. In addition, they remove dirt and fleas. Since, saliva also has a cleaning power.

The fur of these cats contains a top layer that protects it. In addition, they have an underlayer of fluff for warmth. On the other hand, cats perspire only through the pads of their paws. So when it's hot, licking each other allows them to cool down the body.

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Cats licking stimulates blood flow.

The papillae measure an average of 2.3 millimeters in the six feline species studied. Some examples are the domestic cat, the tiger and the lion. The authors, for the study, captured the tongues of domestic cats in action with a camera that records 100 photos per second.

The researchers, interested in the practical applications of these findings, believe that human hairbrushes could be improved from the feline model.
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The cat's tongue contains 300 small, hollow, rigid papillae. Photo: Getty Images.

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