[HN Gopher] Chewed and Rolled: How Cats Make the Most of Their C...
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Chewed and Rolled: How Cats Make the Most of Their Catnip High
Author : gumby
Score : 16 points
Date : 2022-06-15 03:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| pengaru wrote:
| > Carlo Siracusa, an animal behaviorist at the University of
| Pennsylvania > who also was not involved in the research,
| concurred. > "The evidence shows that they want to
| impregnate their body with the smell,"
|
| If the side-effect of getting this stuff on their fur while
| getting all frisky and euphoric from its psychoactive effects
| conferred an evolutionary advantage, it's not that they _want_ to
| impregnate their body with the smell.
|
| They're just seeking pleasure, they don't know jack shit about
| what plant chemicals are increasing the survival of their
| species. If the cats that liked the beneficial plants survived
| better, guess what, more cats like getting high in the long-term.
|
| It's disappointing to see "an animal behaviorist at the
| University of Pennsilvania" making such a glaring error.
| [deleted]
| oneoff786 wrote:
| That is, at best, a semantic argument.
| gwern wrote:
| There are bigger problems with the evolutionary argument:
| AFAIK, catnip is first attested in Italy, and I have not seen
| anyone discuss finding a lot of catnip in the historical ranges
| of Felis lybica, that domestic cats come from; how can they
| have evolved to exploit the benefits of catnip if it's _not
| there_ while they are evolving? Seems like you 'd need a lot of
| wild catnip for such a selective behavior to evolve, but in the
| deserts where they live, there might be none. (Catnip isn't a
| particularly desert-tolerant plant.) Then you have the fact
| that something like a third of cats are immune to catnip & it's
| highly heritable, even though if it's a good insect repellent
| (that's quite fitness-relevant), there's really no reason for
| it to not have reached fixation quickly and become a 100%
| frequent trait. Further, catnip response across all of the
| Felidae species is super-inconsistent, with very far flung
| species showing some catnip response but also closely-related
| species showing very different responses; if it's under
| selection, they ought to be similar, and anyway, there may or
| may not be catnip where Felis lybica grew up, but then what
| about South American felines half a world away...? Finally, if
| you feel that you need an evolutionary explanation, then what
| is your explanation for all of the other cat psychoactives like
| valerian, Tartarian honeysuckle, silvervine, the Indian one,
| and so on? If you don't think there is one, and that, like most
| human psychoactives, it's just because biochemistry is really
| complex and stuff happens, then surely that shows catnip didn't
| need one either.
| rurp wrote:
| > They're just seeking pleasure, they don't know jack shit
| about what plant chemicals are increasing the survival of their
| species.
|
| How do you know? Many animals, including cats, are capable of
| thinking strategically. Cats in particular are very aware of
| scents. I don't know all the reasons they roll in catnip, but
| don't see why it's absurd to think that they do it partially
| for self preservations reasons.
|
| Similar to this, cats will often rub against their humans after
| they return home. They specifically rub scent glands against
| their human to add their own smell back into the mix with all
| of the new ones.
|
| It doesn't seem like a large leap to think they alter their own
| smell for practical reasons beyond getting blitzed.
| pengaru wrote:
| The rest of TFA is literally about the evolutionary advantage
| conferred by the plant's chemicals.
|
| It's not about cats having knowledge of what's good for them.
| podiki wrote:
| Really interesting, so you get high and get bug protection, win-
| win! Sadly my cat has no reaction to any of these that I've
| tried: catnip, silver vine, and one other herb I'm forgetting
| (Japanese maybe?). Maybe he's secretly a kid from the nineties
| and took the DARE program too seriously...
| gwern wrote:
| Silvervine is Japanese, so that's already listed; you probably
| tried either Tartarian honeysuckle or valerian. Immunity to
| _all_ of them is pretty unusual, but it 's also worth noting
| that responses can be variable, and each one should be tested a
| few times spread out. (It seems like stress or uncertainty can
| help shut down responses. Cats are very cagey about showing
| inner state.)
| rurp wrote:
| It's worth trying again after some time has passed. I have one
| cat that had no interest in catnip for years, but later
| developed a love for it.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| tolerance break? Haha
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