Why do cats lick their paws? Well, one theory is that they taste like chicken!”
The tongue is a hotbed of papillae
When your cat licks you, it feels like she’s running a piece of cute, pink sandpaper across your skin. The rough sensation is caused by the papillae on her tongue, which are basically tiny, backward-facing barbs made of keratin, the same stuff that’s found in human fingernails.
These work like a comb for grooming their fur, and are also used to rasp meat from animal bones. Cats are solitary hunters, but are also small enough to be prey for other animals, so grooming is important to minimize their own scent and make them harder to detect. Dogs evolved from pack-hunting wolves and grooming isn’t so important, so they have ordinary, smooth tongues.
Cats overgroom when they are stressed
When I’m nervous, I pick at my fingernails. Cats can engage in similarly compulsive behavior. Grooming releases endorphins, so when cats get stressed or anxious, they lick themselves — and sometimes they overdo it. Called psychogenic alopecia, overgrooming is typically indicated by bald spots — or even sores, as some cats turn to self-mutilation.
Cats frequently indulge in these lick fests in private, so you might not notice until your cat’s belly turns up hairless one day.
In this case, you’ll need a vet to confirm the diagnosis and rule out other potential issues — and you’ll also want to discuss ways to reduce your cat’s stress.
After hunting, a cat will groom himself thoroughly to erase all evidence of his recent foray into brutal murder. Cats are small enough to be both predator and prey. Therefore, they do not want to leave traces of their whereabouts that other predators can trace.Cats can’t taste sweets
Cats have fewer taste buds than humans, and they generally cannot taste sweets. Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they eat only meat. Their taste buds might not have evolved to detect sweet flavors.
Cat’s tongues act like water magnets
Science has discovered that when cats drink, they pretty much defy gravity. The tongue barely brushes the surface of a liquid before darting quickly back up, forming a column of water between the moving tongue and the surface of the liquid. Then the cat’s jaws snap closed around this column of water, and the cat swallows it. Boom — a refreshing drink, feline-style.
Cats lap at a rate of four times per second — too quickly for the human eye to see. The magic of feline drinking habits was only discovered after a team of researchers took a series of high-speed photographs. It’s like magic that happens in your home every day.