Volume 112, Issue 52, 29 December 2015, Pages 15798-15802
a
Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States
b School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States
b School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States
Abstract
Dogs lap because they
have incomplete cheeks and cannot suck. When lapping, a dog's tongue
pulls a liquid column from the bath, suggesting that the hydrodynamics
of column formation are critical to understanding how dogs drink. We
measured lapping in 19 dogs and used the results to generate a physical
model of the tongue's interaction with the air-fluid interface. These
experiments help to explain how dogs exploit the fluid dynamics of the
generated column. The results demonstrate that effects of acceleration
govern lapping frequency, which suggests that dogs curl the tongue to
create a larger liquid column. Comparing lapping in dogs and cats
reveals that, despite similar morphology, these carnivores lap in
different physical regimes: an unsteady inertial regime for dogs and
steady inertial regime for cats.
Author keywords
Biomechanics; Drinking; Lapping; Open pumping
Indexed keywords
EMTREE drug terms: drinking water; surface water
EMTREE medical terms: acceleration; Article; body mass;
controlled study; domestic cat; fluid transport; gravity;
hydrodynamics; jaw muscle; kinematics; lapping; nonhuman; physical
model; priority journal; purebred dog; surface tension; tongue
ISSN: 00278424
CODEN: PNASASource Type: Journal
Original language: English
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1514842112Document Type: Article
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Funding Details
Number; Acronym; Sponsor: PoLS-1205642; NSF; National Science Foundation
Jung, S.; Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Tech, United States; email:sunnyjsh@vt.edu
© Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
© Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
