Cats eat grass, a strange behavior for these obligate carnivores that primarily get their key nutrients from the meat of other animals rather than plant-based food. Researchers now think they finally have the answer to this mystery.
Eating Grass A Common Cat Behavior
In a new study, Benjamin Hart, from the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, and colleagues conducted a web-based survey of more than 1,000 cat owners who were able to observe the behavior of their cats for at least 3 hours a day.
The survey revealed that eating plants is an extremely common behavior among cats.
The respondents' answers showed that 71 percent of the cats had been caught munching on vegetation in the act at least six times in their lifetime. A mere 11 percent of the animals were never observed eating greenery.
Are Cats Sick When They Eat Grass?
One theory about the grass-eating behavior of cats posits it helps the animals throw up when they feel sick. Only about a quarter of the grass-eating cats, however, were observed vomiting afterward.
Ninety-one percent of the survey participants also said that their cats did not seem sick when they were gobbling plant matter.
The researchers said that vomiting is just an occasional by-product of eating grass and not the objective of the behavior.
Eating Grass And Keeping Intestinal Parasites At Bay
They said that eating plants in instinctual and offered evolutionary benefits to felines. Based on studies of chimps and other wild animals, the researchers proposed the theory that grass munching helps the animals expel intestinal parasites by increasing muscle activity in the digestive tract.
Cats do not likely have these parasites anymore, but the researchers said the strategy may have first evolved in a distant ancestor. The researchers explained that since all wild carnivores virtually have an intestinal parasite, instinctive plant eating would have an adaptive role in maintaining a tolerable intestinal load, regardless if the animal senses the parasites.
"The explanation offered here is that regular plant eating by domestic carnivores is a reflection of an innate predisposition of regular plant eating by wild ancestors which is supported by numerous reports of wild carnivores eating plants," the researchers said.
Hart and colleagues presented their findings at the annual convention of the International Society for Applied Ethology in Bergen, Norway, which runs from Aug. 5 to 9.
