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Why cats are crazy for catnip

sciencemag.org

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Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#21

Post by throwawaygal7 »

helen___keller wrote: post #10

I've considered growing actinidia kolomikta , a species of kiwi berry vine, which is noted on wikipedia as being highly attractive to cats. The article mentions Actinidia polygama so I wonder if it's just the entire genus

I think it is most of the genus, I've seen cats eat the shoots on Actinidia plants (Arugata).

I know silvervine is in a lot of catnip mixed, I think not all cats react to whatever pheromone is in catnip so a lot of mixes have several different euphoria in them to try to increase efficacy.

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#22

Post by throwawaygal7 »

dirtyid wrote: post #15

New cat utterly unresponsive to catnip, wonder if defective. Have never encountered a cat that didn't go cray for the nips until now. Last cat was so into it, I worried whether she experienced withdraw symptoms. Literature on that is pretty mixed though.

I believe some cats dont react to it based on genetics, there are other things you can try! Maybe silvervine or valerian?

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#23

Post by spiffytech »

lemcoe9 wrote: post #16

Another opportunity for a shameless plug of my website: https://ipkitten.com It simply serves you a random kitten GIF (some of which involve catnip) and provides your IP address alongside some other connection information. EDIT: The ARIN JSON endpoints have rate-limited me, so ISP information is currently unavailable.

Perfect - looks like this will be my new go-to IP checking tool.

I'll add it into my kitten dev toolbox alongside https://placekitten.com/

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#24

Post by Nursie »

blindm wrote: post #2

Is the high similar to heroin/morphine etc in humans? Because if it is, then is catnip not addictive to a cat? What if a cat discovers whole fields of the stuff and decided to revel in it until death? It's unlikely but it could happen

Stops having an effect pretty quickly. They'd wander off, then maybe come back later. I've observed mine do that with catnip and silvervine.

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#25

Post by tgtweak »

lemcoe9 wrote: post #16

Another opportunity for a shameless plug of my website: https://ipkitten.com It simply serves you a random kitten GIF (some of which involve catnip) and provides your IP address alongside some other connection information. EDIT: The ARIN JSON endpoints have rate-limited me, so ISP information is currently unavailable.

You should cache the cidr ranges and arin responses for a decent amount of time since they seldom change.

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#26

Post by leblancfg »

> Our findings suggest instead that rolling is rather a functional behavior.

People smoke weed all the time and it decreases violence. But that’s not why they do it.

Chances are just as good that the insect repellant is just a nice side effect of these cats getting high, not the other way around.

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#27

Post by Nursie »

dirtyid wrote: post #15

New cat utterly unresponsive to catnip, wonder if defective. Have never encountered a cat that didn't go cray for the nips until now. Last cat was so into it, I worried whether she experienced withdraw symptoms. Literature on that is pretty mixed though.

Silvervine, particularly japanese silvervine powder from smack.co.jp, seems to get them all.

Our female kitty doesn't care at all for the 'nip, but goes crazy for that stuff.

Re: Why cats are crazy for catnip

#29

Post by jbotz »

How were they able to patent this? I've known for 20 years that catnip works as a mosquito repellent; there was a 2001 paper that showed that its essential oil, nepetalactone, was 10 times more effective than DEET[1]. Soon after this a variety of "natural mosquito repellent" products based on catnip appeared on the market. I've made homemade repellent myself by soaking catnip in alcohol and it works great, although it wears off faster than commercial DEET-based repellent; have to keep reapplying.

Anyway, another patent that shouldn't have been issued.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010828075659.h...

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