I’m chuckling at this video showing what happens when large predatory cats are introduced to catnip.
It seems that the size of the cat is irrelevant. I wonder if they’ll start issuing catnip to photo-safari tourists in Africa?
“No, Ma’am, we won’t shoot the lion if it attacks you, but if you sprinkle it with this, you might get lucky!”
Peter
Big cats and catnip what a combo.
My little cats get goofy on catnip.
It is amazing how similar the responses are between these big cats and my house cats. Reno, the leopard acts like just about every cat I've ever given catnip to – rolling around on the bag, rubbing his head and face on it, grabbing with all four paws….
The similarity between the big cats and our pets is striking.
The cat family isn't too heavily modified across species, with the semi-exceptions of lions and cheetahs. They have a model that works very well at all scalings and there is little pressure on them to change it.
That, and with the notable exception of cheetahs, most of the really variant cats died out at the end of the Pleistocene… and the cheetahs very nearly did as well.
But one lion wasn't interested at all. And having the stuff on you could get… erm… interesting if they do want to try it.
The leopards though… they looked like they were having a blast.