Every day I’m home, I’m surrounded by cats. The clowder is rarely more than a few feet away while I tap away on the keyboard. One of them is lounging on the back of my chair as I write this, considering whether she wants to oust me from my seat or not. So you can believe me when I tell you that I’m very familiar with whiskers, and seeing feline faces all day got me wondering about whether one of my other favorite groups of animals sported stiffened structures on their faces, too.

Whiskers – technically called vibrissae in mammals – are an important part of my cats’ sensory arrays. When Margarita abruptly tears across the apartment for reasons I can