Hot Peppers

[Laserbeak]

This is soooo off-topic, it's even off-topic for off-topic!

While thinking I need to spray some of my plants with hot pepper sauce because my cat has been munching on them, not only damaging them, but getting sick himself, I mused on how the hot pepper (like jalapeños, habaneros, etc.) evolved.

I thought fruits were supposed to get animals to eat them so their seeds, which pass through the gut intact, get spread far and wide along with a side of fertilizer too! So why would a plant evolve a fruit that seems to be almost inedible to any animal besides humans who can use them sparingly as a spice?

Is there an animal that actually likes to eat really hot peppers whole and raw off the plant?

[Ferns Daddy]

My Chihuahua will eat all my habaneros and any other pepper I grow right off the plant, when she done with them she heads to the strawberry bed and find all the ripe ones and eats them, I now have a fence around my garden to keep her out so I can have peppers and fresh strawberries. she doesn't get sick from eating them.

[Laserbeak]

Originally Posted by Ferns Daddy

My Chihuahua will eat all my habaneros and any other pepper I grow right off the plant, when she done with them she heads to the strawberry bed and find all the ripe ones and eats them, I now have a fence around my garden to keep her out so I can have peppers and fresh strawberries. she doesn't get sick from eating them.

Wow, I wouldn't think a dog would like something that hot!

This is really weird, I just made this thread then I picked up my mail from the lobby and some "Patio Fire Pepper" seeds came! They're supposed to be hot, but still edible and also decorative.

[Ferns Daddy]

My dog loves all most any kind of veggy or fruit the only thing she won't eat is tomatoes, she never gets any kind of dog food I cook all her food so I know what she eating she just a weird dog but a happy one.

[Laserbeak]

My cat loves sprouted grains like wheat, barley, oats, rye, corn, etc. Plus I grow catnip and cat mint for him. The problem is I thought I had him trained to only eat the plants he's supposed to eat, but he's reverted back and now tries to eat everything, even plants potentially toxic to cats.

[merkity]

i have had a dog that would eat the peppers right off the plants. And my kitties - they usually leave my house plants alone, but let them outside and all the weeks are fair game. Odd - but hey it works great, keeps my plants cat free. just have to clean up the mess the kitties leave me after they eat all that grass, yeck! i also have to hang the catnip or it gets eaten by the locals.

[desertanimal]

Lots of frugivores swallow the fruits whole--that's desired for the plant because the seeds don't get mechanically damaged. A little googling indicates that birds (who don't chew fruit) are common dispensers of native chiles. Also, different taxa have different sensitivities to different things. Carnivores don't have receptors for sweet, if I recall.

[desertanimal]

Here's a title of a Nature paper that explores this very issue. Didn't read it (am on my phone), but it seems pretty targeted at your question. "Seed dispersal: Directed deterrence by capsaicin in chillies." Abstract says capsaicin deters some animals (the new world monkey seed predators like Saki monkeys spring to mind) without deterring good seed dispersers.

[desertanimal]

The real mystery, though, is who were the seed dispersers of undomesticated citrus.

[Vanda lover]

Birds don't have saliva like other animals do and many of them love hot peppers. They are in many parrot foods. They shouldn't be fed to dogs or cats, they can upset their systems.