2023-10-07 08:19:45
How do cats produce these low growls characteristic of purring? Other animals capable of emitting this kind of sound are generally much larger, with large vocal cords… Hypotheses have already been proposed in the past, but thestudy published this October 3 in Current Bioloogy lifts the veil further on this mystery.
“Cats’ vocal cords, scientists explain, have ‘pads’ made of connective tissue, which provides them with an additional layer allowing them to vibrate at low frequencies, reports Science. Additionally, the larynx of these animals apparently does not need to receive a signal from the brain to purr.”
For this study, researchers analyzed the larynxes of eight domestic cats, with the consent of their owners. These cartilaginous organs housing the vocal cords were taken from the animals (euthanized in the terminal phase of an incurable illness) and isolated in order to ensure that a sound produced was not linked to a muscular contraction and that the brain was not was not involved.
The researchers blew air into the larynx and, to their amazement, these eight organs all produced self-sustaining oscillations at frequencies typical of cat purring. There was no need for muscle contraction. The sounds were made possible by these “pads” which lowered the frequency of sounds produced by the vocal cords.
Calming mechanism
These connective tissues had already been observed but no one had yet linked them to purring. This new experiment therefore suggests that purring is a passive phenomenon. For Karen McComb, an ethologist specializing in animal cognition at the University of Sussex who was not involved in the study, this explanation “fits much better with what we know regarding how other vertebrates make sounds.”
Not everyone is convinced, however. Interviewed by the scientific journal, David Rice, a biomechanist at Tulane University who has carried out work on the mechanics of cat purring, believes that this experiment does not guarantee that the vocal cords of living animals behave in the same way.
Read more
[…] Read more on International Mail
On the same subject :
1696667658
#Scientists #beginning #understand #cats #purr
