Cats Lack a Sweet Taste Receptor 1,2,3

Domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) (herein referred to as “cats”) are neither attracted to, nor show avoidance of the taste of sweet carbohydrates and high-intensity sweeteners (1-3), yet they do show a preference for selected amino acids (4), and avoid stimuli that taste either bitter or very sour to humans (1,4). Consistent with this behavioral evidence, recordings from cat taste nerve fibers and from units of the geniculate ganglion innervating taste cells demonstrated responses to salty, sour, and bitter stimuli as well as to amino acids and nucleotides, but showed no response to sucrose and several other sugars (4-11). The sense of taste in cats appears similar to that of other mammals with the exception of an inability to taste sweet stimuli.

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