For Cats, a Big Gulp With a Touch of the Tongue

NYTimes ^ | November 11, 2010 | NICHOLAS WADE

[SonOfDarkSkies]

It has taken four highly qualified engineers and a bunch of integral equations to figure it out, but we now know how cats drink. The answer is: very elegantly, and not at all the way you might suppose.

Cats lap water so fast that the human eye cannot follow what is happening, which is why the trick had apparently escaped attention until now. With the use of high-speed photography, the neatness of the feline solution has been captured.

...

Writing in the Thursday issue of Science, the four engineers report that the cat’s lapping method depends on its instinctive ability to calculate the point at which gravitational force would overcome inertia and cause the water to fall.

What happens is that the cat darts its tongue, curving the upper side downward so that the tip lightly touches the surface of the water.

The tongue is then pulled upward at high speed, drawing a column of water behind it.

Just at the moment that gravity finally overcomes the rush of the water and starts to pull the column down — snap! The cat’s jaws have closed over the jet of water and swallowed it.

[Mila]

"Two of our cats, who have since gone to kitty heaven, would jump on the toilet seat, straddle it, lower their head and drink the toilet water."

I have had many cats over the years, but only one who had a certain very uncatlike habit. He was a stray who just showed up at the door and we named him Sidney. He was an indoor and outdoor cat.

One day when I was alone in the house with him and happened to be walking down the hall, I heard the distinct sound of the bathroom facilities being used. This really startled me and I looked in just in time to see the cat straddling the toilet. I can only think that whoever had him before us had taught him that trick in lieu of using a litter box, although he used that at times as well.

He never quite got the hang of flushing, but even so we were pretty impressed with him.

[RoadTest]

I wasn’t talking to you.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Meow.