Did you know that the smell of a cat Is it more powerful than that of a human being? For this reason, They can recognize aromas that other species do not distinguish.
The veterinary Laura García, of the specialized animal expert site, explains in an article that, together with the ear and sight, smell is one of the most developed senses in these cats. In contrast, taste is its less developed sense.
The specialist clarifies that The loss of smell is not a common problem, except in cases where there is an obstruction caused by respiratory diseases or infections.
In that sense, it is mentioned that the brain zone in charge of interpreting smell is 14 times greater than that of the human being. Therefore, this sense is indispensable in the life of cats and in their interaction with other species, including human beings.
In addition, Garcia points out that cats have the ability to identify substances that people do not recognize. In this case, it is the pheromonesthat function as a form of communication between them and allow to convey different messages, according to their nature. These are not perceived as common odors, but through a additional organ called vomeronasal.
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Why do cats recognize their owners through smell?
First, the Domestic cats They can respond differently to the smell of their owner. Before the smell of an unknown person, his reaction is different.
A study published in Plos One By a team from the University of Agriculture of Tokyo He found that felines spend more time smelling the smell of a stranger than that of their owner.
The researchers used 30 domestic cats, who were presented with plastic tubes with rods previously rubbed in the armpit, behind the ear and between the fingers of the owner’s feet or an unknown person.
They observed that the animals spent more time sniffing the unknown odors than those of their owner or those of an empty tube.
The study also found that, at first, cats sniffed unknown odors with the right nasal fossa, But they changed to the left as they familiarized the smell.
The fact that cats prefer to investigate new odors with the right nasal grave suggests that They can favor different hemispheres of their brain for different tasks, a phenomenon demonstrated in other species such as dogs, fish and birds.
The owners of the cats also completed an online questionnaire to evaluate the personality of their pet and the relationship they had with it.
The male cats with more strange or anxious personalities tended to smell each tube repeatedly, while the most sociable did it more calmly.
However, no personality effect on the behavior of cats during the experiment was observed.
In addition, the researchers observed the characteristic behavior of rubbing (marking) that occurs after the smell, which indicates that this may be an exploratory attitude prior to the rubbing of the smell by the animal.