How do different animals smell?

Welcome, class, to the forests of North America. We’re here to check out some animals that are real smell specialists, starting with the brown bear.

Bears have some of the best sense of smells in nature, much better than humans, and even better than dogs. This is largely because of their impressive noses.

Bears have lots of little muscles in their snouts, which let them point their noses in different directions.

This helps bears identify exactly which direction a smell is coming from. The strength of a smell tells them how close it is.

There are millions of sense receptors inside a bear’s nose, which send information about smells to the bear’s brain. The part of the bear’s brain that deals with smell is actually 5 times larger than the same part of the human brain.

Bears rely on smell for finding mates, keeping track of their cubs, sensing danger and sniffing out food, like salmon.

Like other fish, salmon have two little openings below their eyes called nares. Nares don’t lead into the throat the way nostrils do in mammals, but open up into a special chamber stuffed full of sense receptors.

These nares can detect chemicals in the water which can help give salmon directions.

Salmon live most of their lives in the sea, but they can recognise the smell of the streams they were born in, and they actually smell their way back to them when it’s time to spawn new baby salmon. Amazing!

I wonder if they can smell us above the water? Look out! Flying fish!