I have found, over the years, that catnip (a mint whose scientific name is Nepeta cataria) affects some cats but not others. Hili, for instance, is completely indifferent to it, as I discovered when schlepping a catnip toy to Poland for her. A short (free) article by Jeff Grognet in the Canadian Veterinary Journal gives some information about the plant and how it works. For example:
Compounds in catnip alter the behavior of wild and domestic cats, other mammals, and insects. The main constituent that attracts cats is the trans, cisisomer of the unsaturated lactone, nepetalactone. Nepetalactone constitutes 70-99% of the essential oil of the catnip plant. It is metabolized and excreted in the urine. After oral administration of 20 to 80 milligrams of nepetalactone to cats, histological examination of tissue at postmortem* indicated the absence of permanent alteration or damage. Although the main constituent of catnip is nepetalactone, the most active constituent is a metabolic product of this, nepetalic acid. Cats can respond behaviorally to air concentrations of 1:109 to 1:1011.
*A nefarious experiment: they killed the cats after giving them ‘nip!
Although marijuana has recently been legalized in several states, not enough attention has been paid to the dangers of catnip. It is, after all, a gateway drug to harder stuff, like oregano and cilantro. The next time you want to give ‘nip to your cat, think about the kittens!
This is your cat on catnip:
There is a genetic polymorphism for catnip response, which is why not all cats show it:
Not all cats will respond to catnip. The heredity of the response has been shown to be an autosomal dominant trait. There is no correlation with breed or color. Most nondomesticated felids also react, but there is a suggestion that tigers may not respond. If a kitten is less than six to eight weeks old, it will not react and the full behavioral pattern may not be evident until they are three months old.
That paragraph, from the Grognet paper, suggests but doesn’t say explicitly that the response is due to a single dominant gene. If that were the case, then breeding two cats insensitive to catnip would produce a litter of insensitive kittens. I haven’t read the referenced paper, but it’s sufficiently old that while they could have implicated a single dominant gene, they could not have identified it.
Here’s a frightening video of a catnip overdose:
From Chemical and Engineering News:
One cannot observe catnip’s remarkable and sudden, if transient, effect on cat behavior without suspecting that something chemical is afoot. In fact, the key to catnip-induced friskiness is a compound called nepetalactone, says Carolyn M. McDaniel, a veterinarian at the Feline Health Center at Cornell University.
Nepetalactone is one of several related compounds known to initiate the classic catnip response sequence: sniffing, licking, and chewing, followed by head shaking, body and head rubbing, and then repeated head-over-heels rolling. Similarly active compounds are actinidine, iridomyrmecin, and matatabilactone.
McDaniel says a thorough neurological explanation for catnip-induced calisthenics is lacking, but experts infer that cats receive the necessary stimuli from olfactory and possibly oral receptors for nepetalactone and similar compounds.
Another unfortunate victim (from reader Ronaldo; more photos at Cat Macros: Hide the nip!)
Nip: Not even once!
And it could lead to dancing:
And it works on hoomans, too:
In the 1960’s, catnip was used in place of marijuana or as a filler in marijuana. Even toys for pets were bought to get the catnip for use. Because catnip burned too fast by itself, it was usually mixed with tobacco. A more intense effect could be obtained by spraying the alcohol extract on tobacco and then smoking it . Catnip produces visual and auditory hallucinations. It makes people feel happy, contented, and intoxicated, like marijuana.
I wish I had known that in the Sixties (after all, I was there), when I was reduced at times to scraping the fibrous lining from banana peels, drying it in the oven, and smoking it. (That was supposedly a hint from the Donovan song “Mellow Yellow”.) It never worked.
Do relate your own (i.e. your cat’s) catnip experience below.
we have a patch of nip growing in our backyard. the local feral cats also love it, including the dried up stubs. Much nuzzling and rolling commences as soon as the first shoots show in the spring. It’s a wonder the stuff comes up every year after all of the savaging.
My cat Harry was a “mean drunk” aggressively slapping the stuffing out of our terrier while on the nip. Our current cat, Lucy, just gets mellow and kind of ‘oozes’ her way down the cat tree and across the floor.
“postmortem indicated the absence of permanent alteration or damage.” Classic. Its called ne-pet-a-lactone. Classic.
I give the moggies a happy experience by simmering catnip in water on the cooker. The effect is similar to giving brownies to humans. All is well and then slowly… whoosh! — the two moggies start walking around, sniffing the air, throwing themselves down on the floor, break dancing, looking (at least to us), for imaginary prey, and zooming about with complete abandon. The six dogs (do I really have six?!), are bemused so much so that they don’t even try to herd the moggies — they just stare, completely fixated on this curious behaviour and not quite sure what to make of it.
Pertaining to the comparison of simmering catnip to brownies — I meant the subtle, gentle way it does it’s magic. Not that those that eat brownies start break dancing and zooming about the place 😉
My old cat didn’t give two sniffs about catnip, to my substantial disappointment. At great expense I even tried various forms of catnip delivery – toys, treats, sprays, and his reaction………nothing! 🙁
Sadly, Orson doesn’t respond to catnip. It’s old, sweaty clothes (especially socks) that are magical to him.
My brother once had a cat named Ricochet who didn’t need no stinkin’ catnip. Bouncing off the walls was part of his normal behavior.
Catnip doesn’t affect our two Siamese cats. Saves us money!
Mine respond only to the freshest of herb: they’ve never taken to catnip toys or spray. They do the rolling in it and eating it, but one hallucinates. He stares at the wall and emits his yowl that means he’s seeing unknown cats.
What about valerian, any studies on that? Cats are said to love it as well, but humans find the smell so nauseating that they don’t use it like the nip. A similar chemical?
“… when I was reduced at times to scraping the fibrous lining from banana peels, drying it in the oven, and smoking it.”
It’s time to contact SAMHSA.
An interesting tidbit: Cats know their limit. They eat X amount of ‘nip, then stop. I’ve offered another leaf after my 2 have had 3-4 but they walk away. If humans could only learn to do that…
Not from the sixties, but coughing syrup is the most extravagant non-conventional drug I have tried. It does work!
That would be the kind with codeine in it?
When my wife starts to get her annual winter cough on, that’s what it takes to keep her from ripping things up in there and getting bronchitis.
A friend of mine once tried my cough syrup, which had codeine in it, to get the high. He drank the entire large bottle.
But soon he was in the bathroom, vomiting violently. Couldn’t figure that out, so I looked at the label more carefully: one of the indgredients we hadn’t seen was ipecac.
Oops.
[backs away] I had no idea. Heard this winter over there is nippy, but …
Now I am not a catnip prohibitionist. My own cats don’t seem to be interested in the patch that happens to grow naturally in my garden. A former cat of mine enjoyed some once in a while.
But I find it disturbing how american cat owners in particular seem to actively encourage drug abuse in their cats. They deliberately drug up their cats with industry produced, potent stuff in pulverized and other forms. Haven’t you thought about possible withdrawal symptoms or that it might induce schizophrenia or some other mental disorders? Some of the cats in youtube videos get quite irritated and and angry. Not a good sign, if you ask me….
My objection is based on the idea that some cats react to it once and then not again. I worry that it may be like cocaine and permanently lower the pleasure threshold.
Not knowing if it is in any way dangerous, I’d rather not force it on them.
Freddie gets some every Friday and tries to hit us up for some on other days…
I read it that, in order to see if the {cough, splutter, euphemism} subject animals had suffered permanent damage, then after exposure (say, the feline equivalent of teenage rebelliousness), they would then have had to let the {ahemm} subject animals live a normal life until suffering a natural (-ish) death. Only then would it be possible to compare the histology (reference Douglas Adams’ Mice, saying “diced”) of normal animals and catnip-exposed but otherwise normal animals.
Change one thing at a time.
Not to excuse the non-trivial number of cats used for nasty, pointless, ineffectual experiments. They’d have to be damned important and extremely well-designed experiments to justify one cat. And even then, the paw of Ceiling Cat might descend, at CC’s discretion.
By the way … does anyone vivisect squrlz, and therefore find themselves fearing the wrath of the beneficent and bountiful Lord of the Squrlz (Chicago Department)? Can’t think off-hand of much they’d be good for? Squrlz to human infectious diseases?
I’ll get back to poking lumps of rock with sharp needles. “No reaction .. no reaction … no reaction …”
I’m surprised Simon’s Cat hasn’t done a catnip episode.
Of the three kitties I’ve had, only one demonstrated a penchant for catnip. He was quite unusual when under the influence. I discovered that he also had a similar reaction to black olives, but his behavior was far more zippy.
A neighbor’s cat LOVED green olives. He’d sniff, lick, rub, and roll on one till it was smashed into a pulp. I wonder if it was the brine that sent him into ecstasy.
Haha. My daughter treated my new kitties (tuxedo mother and tortoiseshell daughter) to some catnip sweeties at Christmas. Mother did the usual running around stuff but I was quite worried about the kitten, who was silent and zonked out on the sofa for hours. I went in and asked “Are you OK?” and the response was , quite clearly “Oh eff off, man”
+1
One of the first letters to the editor I ever wrote was to Science, to object to a study on cats on catnip; the researcher described the origins of the study as his curiosity as to what happened in the brains of cats on catnip; to find out, he proposed to get them high then kill them and study their brains.
Although this proves the adage that curiosity kills the cat, surely it ought to be the cat’s own curiosity rather than a human’s that kills the cat.
Jerry,
It is interesting that you discuss the genetic connections with feline catnip sensitivity but didn’t mention that your own aversion to cilantro mentioned in the previous post is also genetically mediated. I don’t remember the percentage, but to a subset of the population carrying a certain allele, cilantro is said to taste like soap. I love it, so I guess I don’t have that version. It makes one wonder if we ever know what the world “looks” like to anyone other than ourselves.
The genetic component of cilantro aversion is mentioned several times in the cilantro thread, however, at least in the comments.
Catnip is definitely going to have a place in the herb section of my garden when I get it going. It’s a lovely plant and rather hardy. It’s got pretty blossoms that bees love. And it’s a tasty savory mint, somewhat reminiscent of oregano (which is also a mint, for those who don’t know).
One of the first batches to be harvested will be made into ice cream (with little or no sugar) for me and Baihu to share….
b&
I’m just mad about Saffron…
And saffron’s mad about me…
What a mess saffron would make if a kitty got into it!!
Something I should have thought of before buying clear Contact shelf-liners for new kitchen drawers. It is impossible to clear all cat hair out of the air and the contact paper attracts the hair ( black, natch) to both its sides. Ah, well, looks all homey already…
That’s the spirit!
😀
If you’re dealt lemons, make lemonade;-)
Don’t give that stuff to Toonses he’ll drive the car off a cliff!
The notion that one could get high from smoking dried banana skins is false. Some have speculated that the myth was originally spread by the FBI or CIA as a ruse to keep folk away from marihuana, but that is also false. The original story was published in the Berkeley Barb, part of the underground press of the time, in 1967.
Scraping the inside of the skins and drying the collected mush and then smoking the result is supposed to yield a compound called ‘banadine’, which is fictitious.
William Powell, believing it to be true, reproduced the method in The Anarchist Cookbook in 1970. his recipe required the peeling, scraping and drying of 15lb (7kg) of bananas, and the residue smoked.
Smoking dried banana skins will not get you high, but the effects of eating 15lb of bananas might make you wish you had.
I met Donovan in Crete back in 1970. I was sitting at a table in front of the tiny hotel and restaurant in a then remote village called Elounda when, coming down the road was a jeep with two young men in it, and I suddenly recognized one of them and said “Hey, that’s Donovan!”. The jeep stopped and the two guys and I got talking. I had a friend renting a small villa up the hill and who had a Martin guitar, so I suggested we go there. We did, and I got to sing and play for Donovan. He told me that his yacht was moored in Agios Nikolaos several miles away, and invited me to come there the next day. He said he would send a boat for me. The next day, a motorboat indeed arrived at the appointed time and took my son and I to his yacht. It was a beautiful yacht which he had bought from Stavros Niarchos. We had a fantastic lunch on board. He even had a piano there, so we made quite a bit of music together as I also played piano.
He had written and prepared a poem specially for me, with lovely decorations. Alas, some jealous guy stole it from me as it was signed.
Donovan limped a bit due to having had polio in his childhood and one of his legs was visibly affected. He was a wonderful, gentle and kind young man. Never saw him again after that, but I’ll never forget the whole little adventure. Ah, those wonderful hippy years!
Electrical banana…
(yes, we did, and it was not baked banana peel but the real deal of excellent quality)
What a lovely story. So natural and gentle. And to play for him — wow! I was going to say it sounds like something from a film but rather, it’s something that should be in a film. The poem and it’s artwork — I hope you had some time to spend cherishing it before “Monsieur Jaloux” absconded with that treasure. For anyone that watches the Antique Roadshow — keep a lookout for that!
Just did a quick scan of Donovan through Wiki and was surprised to see how active he’s been all these years. It also tapped into the cob-webby area of my brain unleashing shedloads of memories with now various tunes running through my head on ‘repeat’. Saw he was in Fairfield IA — have a musician friend living there (Irish uillean pipes), will have to find out if he ended up meeting him during a good old Irish session.
Beautiful story…