1Cats are obsessed with staying clean.
2They can spend up to half their waking hours grooming.
3Their tongue is covered in tiny spines.
4They're what make the tongue feel so sandpapery.
5These spines, called papillae, are made of keratin, just like their claws and our fingernails.
6The papillae even look like miniature cat claws.
7They do an impeccable job of detangling their fur.
8Researchers at Georgia Tech made a 3D model of a cat's tongue... to test how it works.
9See how the fur just peels off?
10It's because the spines are all angled in the same direction.
11With a typical hairbrush, you'd have to pick the fur out from between the bristles.
12So why are cats so preoccupied with grooming?
13For them, it's about more than just vanity.
14For one thing, it's a way to show affection, to build bonds.
15That's why they appreciate us petting them.
16And it spreads out oils produced by the cat's skin that gives their fur some water resistance.
17But when it really comes down to it, for cats, staying clean is a matter of life and death.
18Cats are carnivores ambush predators.
19They hide and sneak up on their unsuspecting prey.
20One whiff of the wrong odor could give the cat away.
21But when they pounce, it's their bite that finishes the job.
22Cats have extra-wide mouths so they can get their teeth around their prey's neck.
23It would be like having the corners of your mouth go all the way back by your ears.
24But there's a tradeoff that comes with that big bite.
25Those wide mouths mean their lips can't come together to form a good seal.
26They can't create suction to drink the way we do.
27So, they flick the surface of the water with the tip of their tongue.
28Researchers at MIT made a model using a glass disc, to show how cats get a drink by just barely touching the water's surface.
29The water sticks to the disc and to itself.
30Lift the disc at the right speed and it pulls the water up into a column.
31Then, the cat bites it at precisely the right moment to get as much water as possible.
32And all of this happens four times per second!
33It's a complicated way to take a drink,
34but it's just one of the prices cats pay to be the expert predators they are...