Natural instinct to avoid toxic plants?

[Sam]

Do animals have a natural instinct to know what plants not to eat?

[Eric Dunayer]

Sam,

Not as far as I can tell. A lot of plants have very bitter tasting toxins that might discourage an animal from eating them. But hungry animals may eat them anyway. And a bad experience with a plant that makes them sick may discourage them from eating them in the future but I don't know of any innate aversion to poisonous plants.

[Sam]

Thanks for the reply.

I thought maybe a pet (cat or dog) may have some natural "sense" which was passed down from the time when their ancestors were wild.

Do wild animals have a built in defense not to eat the wrong things as a survival mechanism?

[Eric Dunayer]

Sam,

Some wild animals do avoid poisonous plants -- whether this is an instinct or whether it is something that their parents taught them I don't know. Other animals have become adapted to eating poisonous plants that other can't. (This is why you should never determine whether a plant is edible by seeing if an animal can eat it safely.)