Scientists think they have figured out how cats drink. Guess what? Our lapping style is different from dogs’.
Dogs use their big, fat, sloppy tongues like ladles. We move the tip of our tongue with lightning speed to create a steady stream of water we suck in, sort of like a human at a drinking fountain.
Here’s the much more scientific description from the abstract in Science magazine…
A combined experimental and theoretical analysis reveals that Felis catus exploits fluid inertia to defeat gravity and pull liquid into the mouth.
I’ll tell you, this amazing “breakthrough” in human knowledge was greeted with a “Ho, Hum” in the Felis catus world. Every kitten knows how to defy gravity without giving it a second thought. Don’t those bozos know any cats?
One scientist said our lapping strikes “a balance between the inertia that makes the liquid rise into the cat’s mouth… and the gravity that makes the liquid fall,” and marvels that we have figured out all this complex science.
The heck with inertia and gravity. We call it thirst.
Cats supposedly lap about 4 times per second, but I may contact Guinness because I think I’m faster. I usually wet my face so, obviously, my gravity-defying skill is so superior, it shoots water right past my mouth.
Roman Stacker, an MIT engineering professor and the goofball who initiated this study after watching his cat Cutta Cutta drink, admits the research has no immediate practical application, but justifies it on the grounds that it may contain “evolutionary lessons” about why cats and dogs drink differently.
He thinks cats want to keep their whiskers dry and dogs don’t care about appearances.
Maybe he should look at the bigger picture and notice that a cat’s tongue goes with the rest of the cat. We’re lithe and agile inside and out so we can make dogs look like clumsy oafs.
That’s the real evolutionary lesson.