{"id":1189249,"date":"2023-10-05T14:46:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1189249"},"modified":"2023-10-05T14:46:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T18:46:00","slug":"we-now-know-how-cats-purr-why-they-purr-is-still-up-for-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1189249","title":{"rendered":"We now know how cats purr\u2014why they purr is still up for debate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> “They excised what, now?” Puck is nonetheless intrigued by new findings about the mechanisms behind a cat’s purr. (credit: Jennifer Ouellette)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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There are few things more gratifying to cat lovers than a contentedly purring<\/a> feline. But the precise mechanisms by which kitties produce those pleasant, low-frequency rumblings has been a matter of some debate among scientists. Now a team of Austrian scientists has determined that connective tissues embedded in cats’ vocal cords play a crucial role in this ability, according to a new paper<\/a> published in the journal Current Biology. The authors argue that their findings call for a reassessment of the current prevailing hypothesis about how cats purr.<\/p>\n

Purring is mostly exclusive to cats, although certain other species can produce purr-like sounds, including raccoons, mongooses, kangaroos, badgers, rabbits, and guinea pigs. And cats are usually divided<\/a> into those that purr (Felinae<\/em>) and those that roar (Pantherinae<\/em>); no cat species can do both. The latter category includes lions, tigers, jaguars, and leopards, and scientists have suggested<\/a> that the roaring capability is due to an incompletely ossified hyoid bone in the larynx. “Purrers,” by contrast, have a completely ossified hyoid, although the purring snow leopard is a rare exception.<\/p>\n

We know the fundamental frequency<\/a> at which cats purr<\/a>\u2014between 20 to 30 vibrations per second, although purrs can go up to about 150 Hz\u2014but that is lower than expected based on vocal cord anatomy. As a general rule, larger animals have longer vocal cords and thus create lower-frequency sounds. But cats are relatively small, typically weighing on the order of a few kilograms, and their vocal cords are also relatively short. Hence the curiosity about how they produce such low-frequency purrs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\nSource: Ars Technica – We now know how cats purr\u2014why they purr is still up for debate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enlarge \/ “They excised what, now?” Puck is nonetheless intrigued by new findings about the mechanisms behind a cat’s purr. (credit: Jennifer Ouellette) There are few things more gratifying to cat lovers than a contentedly purring feline. But the precise … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1189250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1189249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1189250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}