Metal "whiskers" on cartridge body

Some say that modified Denon IS the cats meow,...

This modified Denon is "the cats meow". It's up there with the best carts I've heard. I thought about trying to blow them off with compressed air, but thought better of it, with concerns of blowing a small piece of ferrite metal somewhere it shouldn't be, and ruining my best cartridge.

By the way, I don't have a cat, I'm wondering how a cat could have anything to do with the metal on my cartridge.

The cantilever is white saphire, and non-magnetic. After thinking on this last night, I may try using a bit of masking tape to try to remove the "whiskers", very carefully, of course.

I don't think it'll be possible to make a picture, I used a 10x loupe and strong LED lighting to see this, my old Sony digital camera isn't capable of this level of resolution.

Thanks all, I'll let you know how it all shakes out.
Regards,
Dan

I pondered this same question,eventually I thought perhaps the filings came from the threaded spindle of my Oracle.

If you have old records, that's likely to be debris in the grooves that is dislodged by the stylus.

Metal??? It's not like I'm spinning Led Zeppelin here.