Have you ever suspected your cat might harbour the instincts of a tiny predator? Perhaps it was the way it perched atop the fridge, quietly observing you, or how swiftly a gentle head rub transformed into a sudden nip at your ankle. A new study suggests those instincts are very real. Scientists have analysed more than 17,000 photos and videos from social media, concluding that domestic cats are indeed accomplished hunters — particularly of insects.
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Brazilian researchers examined 550 recorded attacks to determine which creatures cats target most frequently. They found the bulk of feline prey were grasshoppers, cockroaches and so-called “true bugs” such as cicadas, aphids and invasive lanternflies.
“The most exciting aspect of our research is that we were able to use social media data to reveal an impact of domestic cats on biodiversity that has been relatively overlooked by the scientific literature,” said Leticia Alexandre, a student at the University of Campinas.
The images analysed were collected from TikTok and the stock media platform iStock. According to the findings, 20.7% of the attacks involved grasshoppers, followed by true bugs at 14.5%, cockroaches at 14.4%, moths and butterflies at 11.5%, beetles at 9.1%, bees, wasps and ants at 8.5%, and dragonflies or damselflies at 7.2%. Incidents involving flies and praying mantises were also noted, though less frequently.
Researchers believe cats find grasshoppers particularly easy to catch and consume due to their size and global abundance. Grasshoppers thrive on every continent except Antarctica, with around 400 species native to North America alone.
Cats are similarly widespread. In the United States, about 49 million households — more than one-third — share their homes with at least one feline, according to the American Pet Products Association.
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The total number of insects killed annually by cats remains unknown. However, domestic cats are already known to kill billions of birds and mammals in North America each year. A US Fish and Wildlife Service study from 2013 estimated that cats kill about 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion small mammals annually in the contiguous United States.
Although a single pet cat is less destructive than a feral one, it may kill between two and ten times as many animals as similarly sized wild predators within an area of just 100 square metres, researchers told Scientific American in 2020.
This adds further pressure to global insect populations, which are already threatened by habitat loss, pollution, climate change and competition from invasive species. While more research is needed to understand the full impact on specific insect groups, scientists say their work highlights an unexpected new tool for ecological studies: viral cat videos.
Previous attempts to monitor feline hunting habits were hindered by limited tracking technology and the cooperation of pet owners. But the surge of publicly shared online footage now offers an extensive, easily accessible dataset.
“Our findings indicate that social media records, which are becoming increasingly abundant and widespread worldwide, can serve as valuable allies in providing essential data to tackle this challenge,” the researchers said.
