I wouldn’t have guessed that a cat would even care to try a banana. IIRC, they don’t have much or any sense of sweet taste. And bananas can be pretty astringent. So I’d expect that banana minus sugary sweetness equals somewhat bitter acid-y flavor to a cat.
I could be entirely wrong, but the lack of an ability to taste sweetness is what I’ve been told on a few occasions as why cats avoid chocolate while dogs love it. Dogs have the ability to taste, and really enjoy, sugary stuff, whereas cats don’t, and so to them all chocolate tastes like completely unsweetened baking chocolate.
Oh don’t give guys ideas.
This is why vegans should not be allowed to have carnivorous pets.
And so the amalgamation of Xeni Doctorow was complete.
My wife works in a vet clinic. They had a vegan lady in with her cat. She was feeding it vegan so of course it was sick.
They had to spell out to this lady why a carnivorous animal can’t survive on a vegan diet like she can. They’re still not sure she got it.
That poor lion. 
Considering that in Futurama’s universe monkeys and apes have evolved to the point of human intelligence, that lion probably is sentient enough to have chosen voluntarily to starve itself to death freely.
what the what
…that ain’t right.
Primates laugh at feline eating a banana, think nothing of other primates eating bananas. classic primate humor.
I knew a cat who would steal banana peels, carry them to his dish, and eat them. Nom?
Animals are sentient beings. The word sentient has always referred to the characteristics people share with other animals, not the characteristics that separate us … until science-fiction writers got hold of the word, and somehow became confused about what it meant.
sentient (adj.)
1630s, “capable of feeling,” from Latin sentientem (nominative sentiens) “feeling,” present participle of sentire “to feel” (see sense (n.)). Meaning “conscious” (of something) is from 1815.
edited, then reverted, LDoBe had already replied to this version
I am aware of the difference. Language use is largely descriptive. I said sentient because that’s what most English speakers understand is the name for what sapient covers more accurately.
And yes, it’s science fiction’s fault. Thanks a lot Čapek brothers.
I don’t think it’s in most speakers’ vocabulary yet. We can still save it.
But can they smell it? If they can smell it, it will affect the taste as well.
I don’t know, I’d expect that they smell as well or maybe a little worse than dogs. They can definitely smell better than humans. But I don’t know to what extent they’re general sense of smell is capable of. I’d hazard a guess that they’re much better at scenting animals and their byproducts as well as water than anything else, seeing as before we got ahold of them they were desert apex predators.
Based on its expression(just look at those shifty eyes and the smugness around the corners of the mouth); I’m going to postulate that the cat isn’t so much enjoying the taste of the banana as it is reveling in its transgression of the natural order.
“Small predator transgresses joyfully”
“With this much highly motile fiber and sugar, my magnum opus on the antique rug will finally come to fruition.”
I think we are approaching the BoingBoing singularity.
If we can just get a psychedelic GIF of Cory Doctorow reviewing this cat enjoying a banana…
