Breaking mews - is this the real reason cats lick each other?

If you've spent time with cats or kittens before, you'll probably have seen them licking and cleaning each other. Sweet!

Or perhaps not, as a new study suggests that when cats do this, it might not be just so sweet and loving as it appears.

We know from lots of research that cats are really intelligent animals, they can understand lots of things and can even ignore their owners.

This new study says that the behaviour might actually be designed to annoy the other cat. But why?

The idea for the study came when university researcher, Morgane Van Belle, noticed something odd about the way her two cats competed over a sunny sleeping spot.

When one of them settled into it, the other one would go over and start licking him.

At first, this seemed friendly.

But the licking continued until one stood up and left.

The other cat then claimed the sunny spot without ever starting a physical fight.

So the researcher did a lot of work, including studying videos of 106 cats!

Morgane found that licking, rather than physically fighting, may be used by cats to annoy or intimidate each other.

But there's still a lot we don't know about cats.

"Cat research is about 20 years behind dog research," Van Belle said, there are still a lot of questions to be answered."

So, when cats lick each other are they actually being kind of mean? Van Belle doesn't think so, she reckons it's a "subtle way of resolving conflict".

"They could walk over and swat another cat in the face to get the blanket it is lying on. Instead, they lick it a little and fuss around," she said.

What do you think? Have you ever noticed your pet behaving in a cheeky or unusual way?

Let us know in the comments below!