Japan Team Finds Cats Prefer Silver Vine over Catnip

Tokyo, June 9 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese team of researchers has found that cats prefer silver vine, known in Japan as "matatabi," over catnip, both regarded as cat attractants.

According to a study by the team of Iwate University and Nagoya University, many free-roaming cats exhibited typical behavior of rubbing against and rolling around in silver vine, choosing the plant over catnip in most cases.

The findings were published in an online edition of the Journal of Chemical Ecology.

Masao Miyazaki, professor at Iwate University, said that the study has shown that cats' reactions were not just affected by how strong the key smell component is, given the abundance of the component in catnip.

He said that while the exact reason why self-anointing behavior was rarely seen when cats encountered catnip is unclear, they may have been reluctant to display such behavior due to the overly strong scent of raw catnip plants.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]