Why cats lick photographs?

I don't know about modern digital photographic paper but the old darkroom sort had the light-reactive pigments suspended in gelatin which is an animal product extracted from bones.

Edited January 29, 201412 yr by StringJunky

Just curious: does the cat lick any picture, or just the portraits?

Just curious: does the cat lick any picture, or just the portraits?

Are you thinking they might recognise picture content? That's an angle I hadn't thought of.

Just curious: does the cat lick any picture, or just the portraits?

One of my cats will investigate pictures on my ipad. She tends to be more interested in brightly colored pictures (regardless of content).

 

The other one shows absolutely no interest in pictures at all, whether physical or digital.

 

Edit to add

Found an article from Wired magazine interpreting how cats see the world based on what we know about how their eyes work.

 

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/cats-eye-view/

Edited January 29, 201412 yr by Greg H.

Are you thinking they might recognise picture content? That's an angle I hadn't thought of.

 

Yes, that's the angle I was thinking of: cats are known to - for example - watch tv. This I can confirm from my own experience. They can recognize a bird on a flat surface like a tv. So, why wouldn't they recognize pictures? In addition, some cats will clean their people - licking and even gently biting is their way of carressing (or perhaps just removing that awful human smell, replacing it with a more feline smell).

 

Alternatively, perhaps the photographs are in a frame, which probably means there is a glass cover on the front. The glass itself won't attract much attention from the cats, but perhaps the soap used to clean the glass will leave a taste that the cat likes? A quick google search for cats and soap suggests cats lick soap also from other surfaces - not just photographs.