What the hell is this?!

Cami threw this up. Looks organic, but I can not identify it. Also, it looks like it was in her stomach for a while, It isn't anything from my home that I can figure out. Could it be from commercial food? It's about 5/8" in diameter. As it is drying it is turning grayish.



Poor girl. It must have hurt both going down and coming back up.

 

It looks like a vegetable/fruit stem, like from a gourd or pumpkin?

 

Well, I was thinking that, but it's so tiny AND I haven't cooked any squash since before I got her. I don't know where it would have come from or how it would be in her stomach. Could something like this have been in her stomach for over a month (from her other home)? Surely that can't be possible.

 

Some commercial foods do use fruits and veggies for their nutrients so a piece of stem "could" get in there. I was also thinking a stem of some sort or a partially digested one of those crystalized sugar flowers that decorate cakes.

 

It does resemble something that could be from canned food, one of the veggie bits they put in it. Could it be a button of some sort? Partially dissolved? Kind of looks like an upholstered button or something. Hard to tell though.

 

Does your cat go out? It almost looks fungal!

 

I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have nightmares...poor kitty!

 

Sorry, Tara! It kinds freaks me out too because I don't know what it is or how she got it inside her. I sure hope she feels better now that it isn't inside - and thank God it didn't have to come out the other end!!!

She doesn't go out.

 

It looks like the stalk from a persimmon. But if it is I bet that is still a mystery how she got it!

 

It does look like a piece of some variety of stemmy plant. It might have gotten tracked in on the bottom of a shoe or something.


Sorry, but I had to :lol: a little.... in what other venue do people sit around discussing mystery objects that their cats have upchucked (with photos, no less)??

 

Housemate suggests that it looks like a chewed-up (or stomach-acid degraded) upholstry button off of a couch or other piece of furniture.
'

Edited to add: DUH, if I weren't completely brain dead, I would have seen that Jill and Remi already suggested this. Ok, make it two votes for the upholstry button.

Too bad you don't live near me, I could take it to work and put it under the microscope.

 

I'm assuming you still have the specimen? You mentioned it was turning grey? Is it also shrinking? If so, then I would think that indicates "organic" rather than man made?
Carl

 

I don't know that it is shrinking - maybe a little. I didn't do a precise measurement.

It looks planty to me as well. Now that it is dried up the stalk/stem part (smaller, raised area) has visible micro depressions. Looks like cross-sections of either xylem or phloem tubules (that carry water and food up the stem to the fruit/flower.

 

I trust that Cami is none the worse for wear? Whatever it is (I'm going with Team Plant Stem), her body obviously knew it didn't belong!

Same here! :lol: This is my kind of place, for sure. :smile: