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?

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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

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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.

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