sciencefriday:

Ever wonder why your cats tongue feels so rough? It looks like this.

You’re looking at a 3 mm-wide section of a cat tongue more than a century old. David Linstead’s captivating image was a winner in the 2015 Wellcome Image Awards, run by the Wellcome Trust, a biomedical charity in London.

The serrated ridge may be the most intriguing aspect of this picture. Those rough bumps, or papillae, are the reason that a kitty’s tongue feels like sandpaper when it licks you. When a cat grooms herself, the papillae act like a comb to remove dirt and loose hair. But they also serve a grislier purpose: rasping meat off of bones.

[Image by David Linstead]