Posted on X on Oct. 7, this video has 954,000 views and shows a white and orange cat sitting in a little cardboard box, getting a ride from its owner’s robot vacuum. The robot vacuum-traveling cat looks around calmly while another black cat seems concerned. It follows it around, sniffing the vacuum and looking at its friend.
Litter Robot released an article last February about interesting cat facts. They included that “a cat’s purr has the power to self-heal.” BBC also released an article on the “purr phenomenon,” and included that there’s a lot more to it than what cat owners might originally think.
BBC explained that scientists have debated how cats generate the “purr sound.” Some scientists believed “it was linked to blood flowing to the inferior vena cava, a vein that carries deoxygenated blood to the right side of the heart.”
However, more research showed that it was more likely that “the noise came from the muscles within the cat’s larynx. As they move, they dilate and constrict the glottis — the part of the larynx that surrounds the vocal chords — and the air vibrates every time the cat breathes in or out.”
CEO of the San Diego Humane Society Gary Weitzman said, “While the purr does generally represent contentment for cats, it can also express nervousness, fear and stress. Fortunately, more often it’s an indicator of the former,” per BBC.
He continued, “It’s been speculated for decades that purring was a form of communication. In the early 2000s we hypothesized that purring has other purposes besides this. Work by Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, Karen Overall, and others has led to a better understanding of the purpose of the purr. It’s likely that purring has communication, appeasement, and healing properties.”