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Unless you're keen on becoming a tiger's personal plaything, don't wear Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men on safari. Pat Thomas, the general curator at the Bronx Zoo found that, in a test of 24 fragrances, big cats like cheetahs and Siberian tigers (above), enjoyed Nina Ricci's L'Air du Temps and Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men the most—clocking in at 10.4 minutes and 11.1 minutes interacting with the scent, respectively.

Now, Obsession is widely used not only in zoos, but in the field, where it has helped produce breakthroughs in wildlife biology and conservation. As it happens, big cats of all stripes are obsessive when it comes to the scent. Roan Balas McNab, a Wildlife Conservation Society program director in Guatemala, has been using Obsession for Men since 2007 to help study jaguars in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a protected tropical forest spanning 8,100 square miles. After hearing through a colleague of Mr. Thomas's scent test, Mr. McNab's field biologists began spraying Obsession for Men near their cameras. Researchers squirted the cologne onto a rag tied to a stake in the ground. The elusive jaguars, which scientists say can detect smells from up to a kilometer away, crept forth. Three times as many of the cats walked by camera stands spiked with the cologne than those without it. Camera footage showed curious cats sauntering up to the scented rag, sniffing it, then lingering nearby. That diversion gave researchers the chance to get clear, full shots of the jaguars and their spot patterns.

, who helped create the scent, speculates that it could be the musky vanilla-ness of the fragrance that attracts the cats. Big cats obsess over Calvin Klein's "Obsession for Men" [WSJ]