This is interesting. A popular squirrel deterrent for bird feeders is to put spicy stuff on the seed. I’ve been trying that lately and the squirrels have completely left my bird feeder alone. So there must be something rodents don’t like — unless squirrels are just built different?
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Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
iirc mice don’t have the same response to capsaicin as humans - they can taste it, and don’t particularly like the taste, but it doesn’t cause them pain like it does in humans?
proudblond@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Squirrels just need to nut up.
ftbd@feddit.org 2 days ago
I thought all mammals responded to capsaicin
burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Seeing the videos of goats just casually chomping through the carolina reapers, I would bet there are differences in species.
tacosplease@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Sharks aren’t bothered at all. There’s probably lots of animals that respond differently than humans. I believe birds enjoy capsaicin.
burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I was mostly referencing the mammals, because that was the top comment, but sure.
DampCanary@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You thought right, at least based on this research:
saltesc@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I assume so. I have had critters gorging on my ghosts and reapers in the garden. Losing an entire plant overnight was the last straw so I have webbing up now, but they were clearly unaffected.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Lost a plant with peppers on it? I wonder what OG was eating that.
saltesc@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well I didn’t lose it, it just got FUBARed by something big. Either landed on it or tried to take it away. All peppers gone too, right when they were starting to turn red :(
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Lame
DampCanary@lemmy.world 2 days ago
By this researcher they do feel the “pain” from it:
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Am I just missing where they claim that? From the conclusion:
Altering the palatability of this feed to rodents through the addition of capsaicin may greatly enhance traditional methods of increasing poison bait acceptance on poultry operations
That they avoid taste has nothing to do with the ‘pain’ experienced as a result of consuming it - in the preceding section they discuss other strategies to increase bait acceptance, including adding rodenticide to preferred bait foods. That rodents do not like the taste isn’t really in question, that they have a pain response to consuming it is.
DampCanary@lemmy.world 2 days ago
here is test that uses pain caused by capsicin to test local anesthesia:
orofacial capsaicin test in rats
Does this prove that capsicium causes pain?
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Okay but the question was never if subcutaneous injections of capsaicin produce a pain reaction, nor how the effects of neonatal exposure to capsaicin effect the development of a rats life (even if there are impacts on the sensitivity of a response in TRPV1 as a result, your second link pretty clearly establishes that that is not a strong indicator of pain response to capsaicin in rodents). Neither of those have to do with the consumption of capsaicin, though the second article is pretty interesting! It doesn’t establish a relationship between baseline “rodents” and TRPV1 response though, nor does it make any claims about severity of response or exposure sensitivity (which are not the goals of the paper), but that may be because the only english copy I can find of the article is a fairly abbreviated version of the full chinese text (and I uh… do not read written chinese very well at all, let alone discussions of technical biology).
ummthatguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m sure birds are immune as well as Steve-O, can’t say for sure of rodents.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
From a tiny amount of reading (and a complete lack of a biology degree…) it’s that the rodent taste buds just react differently to the capsaicin, so it doesn’t hit the sodium channels in the pain receptor ‘stack’ in the same way as it does in humans.
I think.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
As a self proclaimed “marine biologist,” I can neither confirm nor deny.
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