Cat owners know that cat friends can be a bit eccentric. From licking plastic bags to getting a Zoomy, there are certainly some strange habits for cats. Recently, some cat lovers have been paying attention to another strange fixation of their pet. It’s an obsession with concrete. In fact, some cat owners brought rectangular concrete pavements from their hardware store homes for their cats.
But why do cats love concrete so much?
There is no direct scientific study on cats and concrete. However, one expert has some ideas as to why some cats like to relax, scratch and roll on concrete blocks.
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According to Jonathan Rossos, a professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, according to the author of “The Cat Moo: How Cats Evolved from Savanna to Your Sofa” (Viking, 2023), our cat friends are naturally curious and are probably also depicted in concrete textures.
“Cats probably like the rough surface vibe,” Rossos told Live Science via email. The rough texture of the concrete causes the cat to hurt and clean itself, smacking parts of the body that it otherwise could not reach.
Concrete also provides a great place for cats to mark their territory, Rossos added. Cats have scented glands around their face and body that release pheromones. These pheromones are used to mark territory and send social signals to other nearby cats, and are released when cats rub their scent onto the object.
Related: Why do cats make strange faces after smelling something?
Furthermore, cats in viral social media videos could be drawn on concrete blocks, as they are naturally curious creatures, rather than concrete things themselves, Rossos speculated.
“If you put new objects in their homes, I think they’ll at least respond to curiosity,” Rossos said. “To really look into this, someone has to experiment.”
To tear whether a cat is particularly interested in concrete or new objects, Losos suggested giving the cat a concrete block-shaped object made of smooth plastic, or a soft cat bed of the same shape. The cat can then be observed to determine whether the cat is a concrete material on which it is depicted, or whether it interacts with similarly shaped objects.
Rossos also wonders to what extent cats’ reactions to concrete in viral video are related to the rectangular shape of the block.
“This also reminded me of the trend of putting squares and rectangles on the floor a few years ago. Often made from masking tape, cats would sit inside the border,” Rossos said. “This seems to be related to the love of being in a cat’s box.”
Cats like to hang out in boxes as shelters bring comfort. But their love for the box goes beyond the shape of a three-dimensional rectangular shape. It also seems that they enjoy the shape of the two-dimensional box.
In fact, a 2021 study found that cats chose to sit in a square two-dimensional fantasy, indicating how relaxed they are in a rectangular space. Rossos pointed out that concrete tiles are also rectangular, so cat instincts can trigger instincts to sit on the block.
To test whether a cat is drawn in the shape of a concrete block, Rossos proposed to put out concrete objects in different shapes and see which ones the most interact with.
“This is an attractive phenomenon that screams for good scientific research!” said Rossos.
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