Monday, July 4, 2022
SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag - Latest science news from science magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home SCIENCE NEWS Space & Planetary Science

Cats’ strange reactions to catnip make it a better insect repellent

June 14, 2022
in Space & Planetary Science
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Anyone who has seen a cat experience catnip knows that it makes them go a bit wild – they rub in it, roll on it, chew it, and lick it aggressively. It is widely accepted that this plant, and its Asian counterpart, silvervine, have intoxicative properties, but this might not be the only reason that cats rub on and chew the plants so enthusiastically. Researchers in Japan have found that when cats damage catnip, much higher amounts of strong insect repellents are released, indicating that the cats’ behavior protects them from pests. This study appears in the journal iScience on June 14.

Cat rolls on silvervine in the lab

Credit: Masao Miyazaki

Anyone who has seen a cat experience catnip knows that it makes them go a bit wild – they rub in it, roll on it, chew it, and lick it aggressively. It is widely accepted that this plant, and its Asian counterpart, silvervine, have intoxicative properties, but this might not be the only reason that cats rub on and chew the plants so enthusiastically. Researchers in Japan have found that when cats damage catnip, much higher amounts of strong insect repellents are released, indicating that the cats’ behavior protects them from pests. This study appears in the journal iScience on June 14.

Cats’ reaction to catnip and silvervine is so ubiquitous that lead author Masao Miyazaki, an animal behavior researcher at Iwate University, had to know what was going on. “Even in the famous musical Cats there are scenes where you see a cat intoxicate another cat using catnip powder,” he says. Miyazaki began his career in veterinary medicine and developed an interest in how chemicals, such as pheromones, drive companion animals’ instinctual behaviors.

Catnip and silvervine leaves contain the compounds nepetalactol and nepetalactone, iridoids that protect the plants from pests. To see how cats’ behavior was affecting the chemicals released by the plants, Miyazaki worked with chemists at Nagoya University. “We found that physical damage of silvervine by cats promoted the immediate emission of total iridoids, which was 10-fold higher than from intact leaves,” says Miyazaki.

Not only were more iridoids released, but their composition changed in ways that seemed to encourage the cats. “Nepetalactol accounts for over 90% of total iridoids in intact leaves, but this drops to about 45% in damaged leaves as other iridoids greatly increase,” says Miyazaki. “The altered iridoid mixture corresponding to damaged leaves promoted a much more prolonged response in cats.”  

In previous work, Miyazaki and his team showed that these compounds effectively repel Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. Now the team has shown that when cats damage the plants by rubbing, rolling, licking, and chewing, the repellent properties are even more effective. The diversification of iridoids in damaged silver vine leaves makes it more repellent to mosquitoes at low concentration.

To test if the felines were reacting to these compounds specifically, the cats were given dishes with pure nepetalactone and nepetalactol. “Cats show the same response to iridoid cocktails and natural plants except for chewing,” says Miyazaki. They lick the chemicals on the plastic dish and rub against and roll over on the dish.”

“When iridoid cocktails were applied on the bottom of dishes that were then covered by a punctured plastic cover, cats still exhibited licking and chewing even though they couldn’t contact the chemicals directly,” says Miyazaki. “This means that licking and chewing is an instinctive behavior elicited by olfactory stimulation of iridoids.”

Next, Miyazaki and his team want to understand which gene is responsible for cats’ reaction to catnip and silvervine. “Our future studies promise to answer the key remaining questions of why this response is limited to Felidae species, and why some cats don’t respond to these plants,” says Miyazaki.

###

This research was funded by JSPS KAKENHI, the Suntory Foundation for Life Sciences, and the Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant from The Japan Science Society.

iScience, Uenoyama et al. “Domestic cat damage to plant leaves containing iridoids enhances chemical repellency to pests” https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(22)00726-X

iScience (@iScience_CP) is an open-access journal from Cell Press that provides a platform for original research and interdisciplinary thinking in the life, physical, and earth sciences. The primary criterion for publication in iScience is a significant contribution to a relevant field combined with robust results and underlying methodology. Visit: http://www.cell.com/iscience. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact [email protected].  



Journal

iScience

DOI

10.1016/j.isci.2022.104455

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Domestic cat damage to plant leaves containing iridoids enhances chemical repellency to pests

Article Publication Date

14-Jun-2022

Tags: catnipcatsinsectreactionsrepellentstrange
Share26Tweet16Share4ShareSendShare
  • Machine learning goes with the flow

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Dinosaurs took over amid ice, not warmth, says a new study of ancient mass extinction

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Only through international cooperation can AI improve patient lives

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Cosmological thinking meets neuroscience in new theory about brain connections

    67 shares
    Share 27 Tweet 17
  • COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover

    92 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • New research supports risk-based prostate cancer screening

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
ADVERTISEMENT

About us

We bring you the latest science news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Latest NEWS

COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover

nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Uncertainty about inflation tempers good news for people with disabilities

Famous Sterkfontein Caves deposit 1 million years older than previously thought

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 190 other subscribers

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Posting....