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.

[Laserbeak]

Originally Posted by desertanimal

Carnivores don't have receptors for sweet, if I recall.

I believe only the cats have lost the taste buds for sweetness, so they are the most carnivorous of the mammals (except for the whales/dolphins I guess). Dogs certainly still have them and wolves actually can survive on a vegetarian diet for a while if no prey is available. Cats would die. Although many cats do eat grasses and some leaves for fiber to make them "regular" and settle their stomachs, they get a negligible amount of nutrition from plants.

[desertanimal]

Originally Posted by Laserbeak

I believe only the cats have lost the taste buds for sweetness, so they are the most carnivorous of the mammals (except for the whales/dolphins I guess). Dogs certainly still have them and wolves actually can survive on a vegetarian diet for a while if no prey is available. Cats would die. Although many cats do eat grasses and some leaves for fiber to make them "regular" and settle their stomachs, they get a negligible amount of nutrition from plants.

Good catch. I overstated. Many carnivores have lost receptors for sweet. Not all have yet been checked, but sea lions, fur seals, Pacific harbor seals, Asian small-clawed otter, spotted hyena, fossa (woot! My fave!), banded linsang, and all known cats have a non-functional Tas1r2 allele via some mutation or other, which is the one that codes for sweet receptors. But plenty of carnivores have an apparently functional Tas1r2 allele--yellow mongoose, aardwolf, domestic dog, red wolf, spectacled bear, giant panda, red panda, racoon, domestic ferret, and Canadian otter. Many of these species have also been tested for and exhibit behavioral preference for sweet. As for non-Carnivora, chickens, tongueless Western clawed frogs, vampire bats, and dolphins also have non-functional Tas1r2 alleles. Some of these species also lack functional umami taste receptor alleles, and the giant panda lacks a functional umami receptor allele while retaining a functional sweet receptor allele. This is all from Jiang et al. 2012. Major taste loss in carnivorous mammals. PNAS 109: 4956-4961 Fun stuff!

[Laserbeak]

Originally Posted by desertanimal

Fun stuff!

Yes, it's all quite interesting. I did read just recently read that the only thing the Cetaceans can taste is salt. Which sounds a bit bizarre since you'd think that's the one thing they wouldn't want to taste since they are always in saltwater! Perhaps they taste it to tell how salty the water is to adjust their systems, some dolphins do live in freshwater rivers.