MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Our cat (Mushroom) was standing on my chest this morning as I lay in bed. She was looking at me adoringly (obviously) and purring loudly as she fell in love with me all over again. Now, when she purrs she tends to get a bit, for want of a better expression, grobby. What I mean is she starts to bubble a bit of saliva that then hangs like strings from both sides of her mouth. This morning, one of the strings snapped and a sizeable globule landed on my cheek. Not nice I know and she was immediately pitched off the bed as I went to wash my face. Why am I telling you this you? Well what really surprised me was the temperature of the saliva. It was positively chilled. Like really cold water. How can this be? I have had a look at a schematic diagram of a cat and there is no sign of a compressor, expansion valve or heat exchanger amongst the usual bits and bobs. So is Mushroom unique or do all cats produce chilled saliva? Over to you cat owning STWers - get your cat to grob on you and tell me if it's chilled.
Thanks in advance for getting a bit messy in the name of science.
DS
I'm sure there are specialist forums for cat lovin'
i'm sure there are forums for this kind of sexual preference too..
My Bingo has a cold tongue when hes been sleepnig.
This really does read wrong doesn't it?
The dribbley saliva thing is not unique- the neighbours cat used to positively drip when she was happy, but the coldness?? Strange.
It's a stringy bit of fluid dangling in the air. It started at ~35ish degrees C, while dangling in the air it will have rapidly cooled to ambient (20-ish). It then landed on your face. Your face, however, is warm too if you're not dead, and the drool has a fairly high specific heat capacity and conduction capabilities, so when it hit your face it started going from 20 back up to T(face). In doing so it cools your cheek.
Just like when you pick up a knife or fork out of the kitchen, it's at ambient temp but it conducts heat from your hand fairly quickly so it feels cold to touch.
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