Carm’s kitten is sick and we’ve been struggling twice a day to give her liquid antibiotics. How it works is, I essentially tackle and maul the poor animal. Once she’s subdued (aside from yowls of outrage and frustration) Carm pries open her mouth, sticks a syringe inside and shoots the antibiotics in there. Then I let the cat go and she scowls and storms around, shaking her head in displeasure at the taste of the stuff. And it finally dawned on me why this works…

Cats can’t spit!!!!

A baby would just spit the foul tasting stuff out, right? But think about what a cat (or a dog…I also realized that dogs can’t spit either) does when they bite into something they don’t like. They open their mouth wide and point it at the ground and hope gravity does the job. I’ve seen mean people throw a ‘treat’ to a dog that’s something vile. The poor dog can’t get the item out of its mouth at all easily!

So dogs and cats can’t spit. WHY? People can spit. Camels can spit. Spitting cobras can spit.

Can chickens spit? Can cows? What about chimps?

There must be an evolutionary reason why some animals can spit and others can’t. But for the life of me, aside from the spitting cobra example, I can’t figure out what it is…

I’ll no doubt spend my entire weekend contemplating this!