Aug 11, 2005

Catnip caught catnapping…

Posted in Chemistry at 12:24 pm by David Bradley -- Click to comment

According to this week’s C&EN many cats are unaffected by catnip.

Apparently, only 50% of cats respond to catnip. Catnip sensitivity is inherited, says Carolyn McDaniel, a veterinarian at the Feline Health Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

Catnip is available as a herb or the essential oil of Nepeta cataria, and it’s the compound nepetalactone that is one of several chemicals known to set off the characteristic behaviour of cats exposed to it. This behaviour generally starts with sniffing, licking and chewing, followed by head shaking, body and head rubbing, and then repeated head-over-heels rolling.

No one is sure why cats respond to nepetalactone in this way, but it sounds like it’s doing something not dissimilar to the action of cocaine. (I defer to the experts on that presumption though).
If you’d like a print-quality molecular structure of nepetalactone to accompany an article you may be writing on this compound please check out my molecular modeling service.

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