Why does animal fur (long cat hair, etc) dry up hard, when it comes in touch with bodily fluids (such as animal’s own spit), but not when it comes in touch with water?
In: Biology
Saliva, and other bodily fluids for that matter, are primarily water but have lots of proteins, enzymes, minerals, etc in it. Water will just evaporate on its own, but those other things don’t evaporate at the same temperature and so they can be left behind on the hair and some of them have the capacity to form a more sticky substance which works to hold hair together into a “harder” mass.
Not sure where this is from, my in my experience it doesn’t – cats and dogs lick themselves all the time and it doesn’t result in drying up hard. A cat who grooms themselves a lot will actually be the opposite.
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