LONDON, Dec 13 — Although increasingly domesticated, the cat remains a predator. Their natural predatory instinct drives them to attack not only the furniture, but also the animals that cross their paths. In fact, one study claims that these felines are capable of eating a wide range of species.

The authors of this research found that cats can eat 2,084 different species. Birds, reptiles and mammals make up 90 per cent of the species they consume.

However, felines seem to show a taste preference for birds. This is not surprising when you consider that there are more species of birds than mammals worldwide (around 11,000 versus some 6,500 mammals), and that birds live in many island ecosystems, inhabited by cats and devoid of local mammals.

The scientists claim that cats also eat insects and amphibians, but to a lesser extent. Cats living in Africa, however, have a diet richer in insects than their counterparts living in other parts of the globe.

In fact, these invertebrates are the third most common prey category on the continent. This finding is all the more surprising since, "because of the nature of amphibian and invertebrate skin and exoskeleton, respectively, there is often far less physical material to evaluate remains in [the cats’] scat or digesta,” read the study, published in the journal, Nature Communications.

The findings of this scientific paper challenge the common belief that cats are very particular about what they eat. They may be when they live mainly indoors, but are much less so when they can give free rein to their hunting instincts.

"Cats are largely eating what is present and if a species is missing in the diet analysis it is likely that the prey is either absent or rare in the surrounding environment, difficult for cats to catch and hence of low profitability, or the prey is difficult to detect (eg, invertebrates) in scat or digesta studies,” the researchers say.

Cats’ predatory instincts have environmental implications. Indeed, Christopher Lepczyk and his colleagues note that these felines eat several hundred endangered animal species, mainly birds. All of which makes cats less than eco-friendly eaters. — ETX Studio