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"The principal constituent components of earwax are complex sebaceous fluids and sloughed off dead skin cells. The sebaceous fluids are composed mostly of triglyceride fatty acids, waxes and cholesterol esters. A cat is not a spohisticated creature when it comes to its sense of taste. Where a human has close to 10,000 tastebuds, a cat has less than 500. However, they make up for this by having a higher concentration of olfactory receptors. (Estimates vary between breeds, but they have approximately 50 times the number of our 5 million or so odour sensitive cells.) Like humans though, they only respond to the four basic taste types of sour, bitter, salt and sweet - their response to sweet being the weakest. Most of our experience of flavour is actually due to smell - it is our sense of smell which determines why different food 'tastes' different. It is reasonable to assume that cats use a similar blend of smell and taste in determining the palatability of food. Consider the following. Cats rarely reject a proffered piece of food on the basis of it's taste. They use smell as the discriminator to decide if something is likely to be good tucker or not. Using their sense of smell, the cats subconsciously realise that earwax has a nutritional value - specific olfactory receptors will be triggered by the scent of the fatty acids, the cholesterol, and also the dead skin cells (mostly protein). Cats are specifically attuned to the scent of animal proteins, hence their preference for meat - also the reason why cats hungrily devour earwax (and also love freshly picked scabs). The ratio of smell receptors to taste receptors is virtually reversed in cats and humans - as such if something smells good but tastes like #### then we won't eat it, but if a cat likes the smell of it, it has to taste #### awful before it won't eat it. A cat will eat small lumps of plasticine if they're covered in gravy. Try it - it's non-toxic and you can pepper your cat turds with interesting multicoloured lumps. The upshot is that humans, with their increased sensitivity to taste, generally reject eating earwax because of its sour, bitter taste (oh come on, everyone has a dim childhood memory of what earxax tastes like, don't they?). For cats, however, the sour and bitter flavour component of the earwax is barely noticeable in comparison to its wholesome nutritious odour"
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 01:19 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 18:51 |
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Coffee Quack posted:"The principal constituent components of earwax are complex sebaceous fluids and sloughed off dead skin cells. The sebaceous fluids are composed mostly of triglyceride fatty acids, waxes and cholesterol esters.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 02:19 |
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BonzoESC posted:
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 02:24 |
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BonzoESC posted:then my cat ate the barf
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 02:29 |
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it took me years to realize that it was called "earwax" because it was actually all goopy and poo poo in other people. recessive atp-binding cassette c11 gene supremacy
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 02:31 |
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Trig Discipline posted:someone photoshop grumples and this guy into the street fighter 2 vs screen
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 02:36 |
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duTrieux posted:it took me years to realize that it was called "earwax" because it was actually all goopy and poo poo in other people. spergin much? I have wet and dry earwax, depending on the time of year..
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 02:55 |
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loaf we were watching work of art on tv tonight and i looked over and my kid had done this i think its performance art?
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 03:12 |
outside of a bengal that is the nicest coloring i've ever seen
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 03:14 |
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these are the first pics we ever saw of trophy when we were looking for a cat the first one is my favorite cause lol cat tongue
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 03:17 |
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lil z0rphan annie posted:outside of a bengal that is the nicest coloring i've ever seen you should just go ahead and bookmark dis thread then assuming of course you haven't already http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3387278
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 03:19 |
bookmarking threads? how quaint
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 03:22 |
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lil z0rphan annie posted:outside of a bengal that is the nicest coloring i've ever seen inside of a bengal it's too dark to see
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 03:38 |
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wraithgar posted:
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:09 |
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Wilhelm_Scream.wav posted:
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:15 |
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dee eight posted:inside of a bengal it's too dark to see
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:18 |
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whoa. and here i just thought my cat was a freak for eating earwax
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:20 |
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this cat's not giving a gently caress kernel paniced the linux. seriously.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:21 |
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smugcat enjoys laundry day
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:22 |
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sticky wizard posted:whoa. and here i just thought my cat was a freak for eating earwax Gizmo goes loving nuts over qtips even if they don't have ear wax on them. Can't throw them in the bathroom trash, gotta go in the kitchen trash that has a lid on it or she will eat them.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 04:23 |
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TOOT BOOT posted:hella quoting this
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 05:14 |
flyboi posted:Gizmo goes loving nuts over qtips even if they don't have ear wax on them. Can't throw them in the bathroom trash, gotta go in the kitchen trash that has a lid on it or she will eat them. lol
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 05:14 |
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Wilhelm_Scream.wav posted:
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 05:15 |
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Wilhelm_Scream.wav posted:holy poo poo
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 05:23 |
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 07:56 |
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ahhh spiders posted:that looks like some creature from a jim henson fantasy movie
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 08:15 |
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the cat's pretty funny looking, too.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 08:17 |
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basically i just want an excuse to post this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViftZTfRSt8
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 08:18 |
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washing feels so good http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=1gy4H4zFKzE
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 14:18 |
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mod sassinator posted:basically i just want an excuse to post this No one needs an excuse to post Bowie, ever.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 15:52 |
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last time i was at the vet she had to excuse herself to talk on the phone. someones cat had eaten her silicone earplugs. vet hung up and shrugged, said "cats just love ear wax."
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 17:35 |
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i had always hoped my kids and cats would be like trophy and that little girl, but no, my cats are stupid as hell and they flee before my children. the kids are good with them and gentle, but the cats are hella skittish. wraithgar ur a lucky man.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 17:36 |
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Coffee Quack posted:you'll get the biggest fuckin purr ever, or die pettin catte lions can't purr, it's either roar or purr for cats and lions picked roaring
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 17:47 |
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flyboi posted:Gizmo goes loving nuts over qtips even if they don't have ear wax on them. Can't throw them in the bathroom trash, gotta go in the kitchen trash that has a lid on it or she will eat them. I recently cleaned between the keys on my keyboard with a damp Q-tip which somehow ended up on the floor and became my cat's new favorite toy. He'd pick it up in his mouth and toss it into the air like it was a mouse and he was trying to break its neck. Which only goes to show that there's an inverse correlation between the cost and appropriateness of a "toy" and a cat's interest in it.
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 17:50 |
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Nostrum posted:
we got the same cat
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 17:59 |
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JawnV6 posted:lions can't purr, it's either roar or purr for cats and lions picked roaring cats did too, it's just a few octaves higher
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 18:31 |
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i think my cat wants to smother me. i was asleep on the couch last night and he decided to lay his fat rear end directly on my nose, waking me up through suffocation
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 18:33 |
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my cat just came over, tried to jump on my lap but missed and clawed the poo poo out of me, then took off running all embarassed. it was a hit and run and i got no pets out of it
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 18:36 |
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Cattes are assholes (pet them anyway)
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 18:47 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 18:51 |
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wraithgar posted:then my cat ate the barf ugh pascal does this, it's seriously the grossest thing
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# ? Nov 6, 2011 18:51 |