Cats

Cats have been studied to a lesser extent than dogs, although they represent the most common pet in our households, and they have been going through a complex process of domestication. Despite their ancestor was a solitary hunter, domesticated cats are sociable towards humans and other cats (e.g. they can live in big colonies where cats have preferential and complex relationships), yet their social cognition and behaviour is yet to be fully understood.

At the Behavioural Ecology Group we investigate topics such as social learning, communication, perspective taking, knowledge attribution, personality, cooperation, inequity aversion, pro-sociality, and many more.

Collaborations

In collaboration with the Animal Nutrition Group of Wageningen University we perform food preference and food motivation tests with the cats. How willing are cats to work for a specific food resource? Does the smell or size of a kibble matter? Do cats show differences in behaviour or facial expression between different food types? These studies can also be combined with our knowledge on the cats’ personalities. We (e.g. Moesta et al., 2019) found that more impulsive cats were more prone to overeating. Students interested in this line of research can contact guido.bosch@wur.nl.