Category Science

Kiwis are flightless birds. They forage for food on the ground. Kiwis have external nostrils which are placed at the tip of their break. This makes the search for the food beneath the soil or the fallen leaves easier. Kiwis have the second most significant olfactory bulb in all birds.

In fact, the research suggests that feeling the prey’s vibrations may be more important to a hungry kiwi than smelling it. Instead, smell may be mainly used to explore their environment.

The finding surprised researchers. Other probe-feeding birds, such as godwits and sandpipers, also have remarkably sensitive bill-tip organs to pick up prey vibrations, but these shorebirds are only very distant relatives of kiwi. It may be an evolutionary example of two distantly related animals independently coming up with the same solution to the same problem.

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Among sharks, the great white species has the best olfactory bulb. The shark’s sense of smell is controlled largely by the shark’s brain. A shark can smell a drop of blood a mile away. It then cruises at top towards it. Sharks have their nostrils below the snout.

Sharks actually have roughly the same sensitivity as other fish and can detect smells at between one part per 25 million and one part per 10 billion, depending on the chemical, and the species of shark. At the top end, that’s about one drop of blood in a small swimming pool.  Smells reach a shark through the currents, and it would take time for the scent to travel that distance to a shark’s nostrils. The motion of the ocean carries smell molecules with it, so, the more motion, the faster the smell will travel.

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The African elephant has 1948 scent-detecting genes. Elephants can smell their favourite grass a mile away, and can detect water 12 miles away. An elephant’s trunk has numerous receptors, and elephants use their trunks for smelling and grasping things.

Given the size of their trunks, and how important it is to their survival, it is probably unsurprising that an elephant’s nose is not only the longest in the animal kingdom, but also the most effective.

The authors then examined genome sequences from 13 placental mammals and identified over 10,000 OR genes in total. The repertoire of OR genes found in any given species was highly unique – only three OR genes were shared and evolutionarily conserved amongst all 13 mammals.
Surprisingly, the African elephant had the most extensive olfactory repertoire, with almost 2,000 OR genes.
 

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In the insect world, the male silk moth has the sharpest sense of smell. He is a champion smeller. The feathery antennae of moths contain scent receptors. Male silk moths can inhale and identify a single scent particle from a female more than six miles away. He shows he has detected the presence of his love by walking with a swagger, moving slightly from side to side. His powerful sense of smell has inspired scientists to try and develop an artificial brain based on the moth olfactory receptor gene. One day their findings may be used in scent-detecting robots which in turn can be used to sniff out drug smuggling and chemical weapons.

Moths’ sense of smell drives most of their behaviors. Male moths find females through pheromones, and females locate the ideal place to lay their eggs by following plant odors. “What moths do,” Vickers says, “is predicated on odors.”

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Of all animals on Earth, bears are supposed to have the sharpest sense of smell. A bear’s sense of smell is 2100 times better than that of a human. [Imagine a bear passing by a garbage dump! Poor thing!] Surprisingly, the bear’s brain size is one third of that of a human. But the area that controls the sense of smell is 5 times larger. Bears use this keen sense to find food and mates, to avoid enemies and keep track of cubs. Naturalists say that a bear can smell an animal carcass 20 miles away. Polar bears can detect the scent of a potential mate 100 miles away. Well, that may be because the air is clean in the polar regions!

Bears also have highly developed noses that contain hundred of tiny muscles and let them manipulate them with the same dexterity as people’s fingers. The surface area inside their 9 inch noses also has hundreds of times more surface area and receptors than a human’s.

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