Ted Davis wrote:
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 18:54:00 GMT, BC wrote:


Ted Davis wrote:

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:50:26 GMT, BC wrote:



While stroking my cat earlier i noticed that he had a clump of longer
hair sticking out of a lump of hard skin on the back of both of his
forelegs and was wondering if it was normal, as i have never noticed it
on a cat before.

Will try and explain its location;

If you look at his paws he has the four pads with claws and then the
large pad, followed by the pad on the side with another claw, then
another pad just off centre on the back then slightly higher is this
lump with long hair.

Does everyone elses cat have this?
Have visions of everyone examining their cats paws now!


I think you are talking about the vibrissae (tactile hairs) on the
back of the lower front legs - they are similar to whiskers and are
quite normal, in fact their absence would be abnormal.


Thanks for that, have never noticed them on any of my previous cats.
They are very obvious on my white cat. I guessed they would be normal,
but wanted to check. Any idea what their purpose is, as I am intrigued
now it seems a strange place to have any type of whiskers?


I have no idea what they are for, and since some cats don't have them,
they probably aren't essential, at least to modern cats.

Well I got a chance to ask the vet what the hairy lump was and the
answer was this; The hairs are Guide hairs very similar to the whiskers
found on their face, they are used to judge the size of any area that
the cat decides to try and enter paws first! Apparently they are not
found on every cat. You may also find your cat has a fine covering of
longer hairs over other parts of their body(these are very noticable on
my white cat) these are also apparently Guide hairs which are also used
to judge the width of things, but like the vet said, some cats still
ignore these and get stuck!

--
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