Of all the cat videos on the Internet – and studies estimate that there are over 2 million on YouTube alone – few are more striking than ones featuring cats leaping away, afraid of a cucumber.

Why are cats scared of cucumbers? 

One of the reasons could have to do with a fear of snakes.

To quote from an article in ABC News:

“Cats are genetically hard-wired through instinct to avoid snakes,” Con Slobodchikoff, animal behaviorist and author of Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals, said. “Cucumbers look enough like a snake to have the cat’s instinctive fear of snakes kick in.”

Cats are not alone in displaying such a rapid reaction to a visual stimulus that is similar to a snake. Multiple studies (Maior et al., 2011; Soares, 2012; Van Le et al., 2016) have shown that humans have a subcortical visual route that provides a direct pathway to the amygdala for snake detection.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped part of the brain that is central to the experience of emotions – particularly those having to do with panic and fear. Research has shown that pre-wired responses have been encoded into an evolved brain circuit leading to the amygdala. These responses allow you to detect a snake faster than you would most other stimuli.

An instinctive fear of snakes could explain why your cats jump in fright at the sight of a cucumber. However, there’s one other explanation: the manner in which you present an object to a cat might be just as important as the object itself. 

Through a series of simple experiments, Katenna Jones of Jones Animal Behavior Training in Rhode Island found that cats react far more calmly to objects that are placed in front of them – including cucumbers. According to Jones, while cats might have an exaggerated response to cucumbers, they are evolutionarily hardwired to react with fright to any object that takes them by surprise.

Is this harmful to cats?

The takeaway? No matter what the titles of those YouTube videos say, there’s nothing funny about cats being surprised by cucumbers. They are doing it because they are terrified. The fear often has debilitating consequences for their physical and mental health. Cats can get stressed by even the subtlest of changes. This can include shifting a couch, to moving to a new home – or even the sudden appearance of a cucumber.  So if you ever feel the urge to surprise a cat with a cucumber: don’t.

If you’re looking for other ways to take better care of your cat, learn more about the Astro pet health app, and sign up for the free preview.