Cats use hollow papillae to wick saliva into fur
Significance
Grooming and cleaning are part of a multibillion dollar industry from carpet cleaning to human hair care to pet grooming. Advancements in this field focus primarily on novel cleaning fluids, with less focus on brush development. This study focuses on the cat, one of nature’s most fastidious groomers. We discover structures on the cat tongue, hollow spines that we call cavo papillae, shared across six species of cats. The papillae wick saliva deep into recesses of the fur, and the flexible base of the papilla permits hairs to be easily removed from the tongue. These multifunctional spines may provide inspiration to soft robotics and biologically inspired technologies for sorting, cleaning, and depositing fluids into fur and arrays of flexible filaments.
Abstract
The cat tongue is covered in sharp, rear-facing spines called papillae, the precise function of which is a mystery. In this combined experimental and theoretical study, we use high-speed film, grooming force measurements, and computed tomography (CT) scanning to elucidate the mechanism by which papillae are used to groom fur. We examine the tongues of six species of cats from domestic cat to lion, spanning 30-fold in body weight. The papillae of these cats each feature a hollow cavity at the tip that spontaneously wicks saliva from the mouth and then releases it onto hairs. The unique shape of the cat’s papillae may inspire ways to clean complex hairy surfaces. We demonstrate one such application with the tongue-inspired grooming (TIGR) brush, which incorporates 3D-printed cat papillae into a silicone substrate. The TIGR brush ex
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