Without full cheeks, cats, dogs, and many other animals cannot use suction to drink. Instead, these animals press their tongue against a fluid and lift it rapidly to draw up Keep reading
Tag: drinking
Hairy Tongues Help Bats Drink
Nectar-drinking bats, honey possums, and honeybees all use hair-like protrusions on their tongues to help them drink. In bats, these papillae have blood vessels that swell when drinking, stiffening the Keep reading
Nectar-Eating Bats
Nectar-eating bats have evolved to use several methods to drink. Some bats, like the Pallas’ long-tongued bat (top), use a lapping method. Hair-like papillae on the bat’s tongue increase the Keep reading
How Dogs and Cats Drink
We humans do our hands-free drinking via suction, using the shape of our lips and mouths to create low pressure that draws liquids in. Dogs and cats, on the other Keep reading
How Dogs Drink
This high-speed footage shows how a dog drinks. The dog’s tongue curls backwards, creating a large area of surface contact with the water. When the dog pulls its tongue back Keep reading
How Dogs Drink
Not long ago, researchers showed that cats use friction to their advantage when drawing liquids into their mouths. New research shows that dogs rely on the same mechanism–they’re just far Keep reading
How Cats Drink
While humans use suction and dogs scoop water using their tongues*, cats use a dainty fluid mechanism to drink. Researchers used high-speed video to find that cats drink by touching Keep reading