Why Do Cats Hold Their Mouths Open After Smelling Something
Camila Farah
They open their mouth baring their teeth for maximum exposure so they can access the most scent possible.
When you see a cat with its mouth half open usually it has just encountered somebody or something else s scent. Flehmen response in a stallion. For that reason cats open their mouths when they smell something to facilitate the entry of pheromones and other chemical substances. Here the cat is smelling its environment by collecting pheromones that are.
The cats slightly raise the upper lip to create a pumping mechanism that allows odors reach the vomeronasal organ. Cats have scent glands inside their mouths. As they breathe in the smell the roof of their mouths must be wet with saliva. But the cat is not the only animal that has this incredible organ.
For example if they were smelling the urine of an animal they would be using this organ to determine if its from a predatory or prey animal. They use these both to mark objects with their own particular scent and to take in outside smells. To use this organ they must keep their mouths open and breathe through their mouths because its openings are located on the roof of their mouths just behind their incisors. Similar to the flehman response is the blep a cat s adorable habit of not quite retracting its tongue all the way.
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The most commonly believed reason for cats opening their mouth for some time is that they do so after smelling different types of scent. It is also very important they only breathe in through their mouths. If its from another cat they figure out if its a tom. This image has a resolution 735x1102 and has a size of 0 bytes.
It s thought that by using the flehmen response cats can identify certain information like the cat s identity if it s a stranger if the cat is male or female and if he or she has been spayed or neutered.
Source : pinterest.com