Although increasingly domesticated, the cat remains a predator – this natural instinct drives them to attack not only the furniture, but also creatures and insects that cross their paths.

Now, a study claims that felines are capable of eating a wide range of species – an astonishing 2,084 of them! You might be surprised to learn that birds, reptiles and mammals make up 90% of the creatures they would consume.

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

The authors of the study, published in Nature Communications, also confirm that cats will eat insects and amphibians, but to a lesser extent, even though cats in Africa have a diet richer in insects than their counterparts 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’ waste or digesta”, the study reads.

The findings 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 largely eat 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 in scat or digesta studies,” the researchers concluded.

Cats’ predatory instincts have environmental implications. Indeed, the experts note that felines can eat several hundred endangered animal species, mainly birds – which makes them less than eco-friendly eaters.