Fur and Whiskers
Even the hair on cats is more than it seems at first glance. This fur coat isulates the cat in both hot and cold weather, protects its skin from scratches and scrapes, carries its oder, and is another part of its sensory apparatus. Wild cats basically have two layers of hair: a warm layer of down hair underneath, and a resilient outer coat.
Most cats have three types of hair in their coat; however, there are a few breds that have only two, like the wild cats, and a few that have only one. The long hair on a domesticated cat's fur are called primary or guard hairs; these hairs grow from individual follicles. There are two types of secondary hairs, awn hairs and down hairs, which grow in groups. Awn hairs are usually medium in length and rather bristly tipped. The down hairs are the shortest and are usually very fine and sometimes crinkled. A cat can have as many as 200 hairs per square millimeter of skin.
There are about seven to twenty-five touch spots per square centimeter of skin on a cat. This sensitivity causes the cats skin to ripple when the the fur is disturbed, such as flicking drops of water onto the cat.
The whiskers of a cat are known as vibrissae. They are of varying lengths and grow on the upper lip, under the chin, over the eyes, and on the checks; they are also found on the backs of the forelegs. These whiskers are so sensitive that they don't need to touch something to know it is there. Using the vibrissae, the cat can detect tiny variations in the air currents that flow around solid objects. The vibrissae or whiskers are aids to vision and hearing. They also help the cat determine how close its body is to something in the dark.
The loose skin on the back, and especially on the back of the neck, is generally five times thicker than the skin on the legs. In fact, on old, unneutered toms the skin on the back of the neck can be as much as a quarter of an inch thick. This looseness and thickness of skin enables the cat to escape predators, instead of getting a body grip, the predator ends up with a mouthful of loose skin. This looseness allows the cat to twist and rake at the eyes with its claws.
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