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(light music)
(bugs trilling)

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(tiger grumbling)

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(crickets chirping)

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(wind whistling)

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Anyone fascinated by the natural world

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has probably wondered why some animals

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have such strange looking sense organs.

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The elephant with its huge ears,

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the antennae of a butterfly,

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which up close look like feathers,

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the snake with its split tongue.

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And what about less obvious enhancements,

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like the sensory cells on a crocodile's skin?

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Surely these evolutionary traits aren't just for decoration.

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In fact, the size, shape and location

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of these animal sense organs is all for a purpose,

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and just like us, animals rely on their senses

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to communicate with each other, find their way around,

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stay safe, and most importantly, to find food.

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When you see how superior some animal senses

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are compared to those of humans,

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you might wonder how we ever managed to stay

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on top of the food chain.

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Animal super senses, you won't believe what's possible.

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(light dramatic music)
(bugs chirping)

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On this episode of "Animal Super Senses"

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we examine how things taste

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and how vital scent is from the animal perspective.

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You may think that there are no gourmets

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in the natural world, after all,

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animals eat for survival, not for enjoyment as we know it.

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So surely only humans are capable

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of differentiating one taste from another.

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Actually it's much more complicated

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and interesting than that.

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In the animal world the distinction between taste

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and scent tends to be more blurred.

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For example, for terrestrial animals,

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those that walk on land,

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taste is all about detecting chemicals called tastens

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that stimulate the sensory cells in a taste bud.

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But their sense of smell will also detect the scent

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of odorants carried through the air.

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In mammals, taste receptor cells are scattered

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all over the tongue.

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In other creatures, they can be located

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in some fairly odd places.

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How taste and smell receptors work under water,

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well, it's a whole other world.

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(light dramatic music)
(wind whistling)

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(birds chirping)

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Let's begin our journey as it were, from the ground up,

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with a look at snakes and their taste for a good bite.

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This slithery character is a rattlesnake.

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Such as can be found across the Americas,

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from Southern Alberta to Argentina,

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in a variety of habitats.

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(snake rattling)

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The one thing that all rattlesnakes have in common

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with other snake breeds is their uniquely good taste.

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They use those famous forked tongues to gather particles

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from the air and identify them

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on a special membrane called Jacobson's organ.

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Put more simply, they flick their tongues

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to taste the scents around them.

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So next time you see a snake sticking its tongue out at you,

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remember, it's not trying to sting you from afar,

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but searching for prey.

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(light dramatic music)

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Tasting their next meal before they eat it,

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you could even say, they have an exceptional sense

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of smell to begin with, but their Jacobson's organ

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adds a whole other dimension.

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The Jacobson's olfactory sense organ was actually

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discovered by Ludwig Jacobson, who it's named after.

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(snake hissing)
(light dramatic music)

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(mouse chittering)

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The organ that now bears Jacobson's name is located

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on the roof of the mouth in many reptiles and mammals.

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Mammals would include us, surely.

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Well, apparently humans are an exception.

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(birds chirping)
(bugs trilling)

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(light music)

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Now, unlike snakes and lizards,

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mammals that come with Jacobson's organ

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as standard equipment tend not to have long forked tones

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that they can without a will to sample the air.

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(mouth crunching)

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So, instead, they do something else.

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It's called flehmening.

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Domestic cats do it, for instance.

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And so does this character, the taper.

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Looking a bit like a pig with a trunk,

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tapers actually belong to the same family

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as the horse and the rhinoceros.

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They can be found in the jungle and forest regions

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of Central and South America, and in Southeast Asia.

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Tapers' eyesight isn't great, but they have

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a heightened sense of smell, plus the secret sensor

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that is the Jacobson's organ.

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When they curl their upper lip

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and look like they're sneering,

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the same way you've seen some domestic cats do,

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they're actually exposing the Jacobson's organ

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so they can taste exactly what's in the air.

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The taper is an herbivore.

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That long snout with a modified lip comes

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in handy for tearing food off branches, for example.

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What the leaves tastes like to the taper,

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perhaps, we'll never know,

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but we do know how it finds its sustenance.

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(upbeat music)
(waves crashing)

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Below the waterline, whether that's a pond, river,

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or the ocean waves, taste and scent is a whole other matter.

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One underwater animal who is guided by scent

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is this sinister and slippery looking character.

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The moray eel.

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Even though there are hundreds of species of moray,

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and they range in size from 25 centimeters to four meters,

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the menacing appearance of a moray eel with its mouth

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constantly agape is unmistakable.

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Morays are carnivores who feed on fish and invertebrates.

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They're also founded oceans temperate and tropical,

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though they thrive in the greatest number

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around warm coral reefs, notably in Hawaii.

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They have something of a reputation for aggression

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and what might even be called a bad temper,

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but actually, when they sense humans approaching

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they usually flee our hide in crevices.

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Mind you, it's usually from the same crevices,

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nooks and crannies that morays launch their fatal attacks.

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When they do they are led, as it were, by the nose.

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Moray eels' eyesight is poor and they rely

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on their tube-shaped nostrils to scent and seek out prey.

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Fascinatingly, one of the moray eels' preferred victims,

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the octopus, has evolved a chemical in its jet black ink,

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which is capable of neutralizing

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the moray eels' powerful sense of smell.

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On its travels, the moray eel will quite possibly

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also come across the goatfish.

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These are also found in shallow waters,

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particularly in warm or tropical climes,

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skimming along coral reefs over mud or sand.

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They have twin barbells hanging underneath their chin

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which must be where they got their name.

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As they look like goats' whiskers,

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or if you're feeling particularly imaginative,

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like a droopy hipster's beard.

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Some goatfish are nocturnal and have a chameleon-like

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ability to change their color.

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But what they all seem to have in common

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is their hearty appetite.

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Goatfish spend their entire lives looking for food.

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How they find it is by utilizing those barbells.

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Goatfish, or what is known as bottom feeders,

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skimming along looking for their next meal

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in the sand below.

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Those barbells are spotted but taste buds that will zone

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in on anything that's good enough to eat.

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For example, shrimp, crabs, clams, and clam worms.

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Goatfish are guided by their sense of taste

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and smell to their next meal,

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and the one after that, and the one after that.

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But there are some underwater animals who deploy

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this super sense, not so much in the hunt for food,

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but as a sophisticated homing device.

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It's called needle homing by the experts.

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Now homing is something we associate with animals

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above the waterline, most commonly cats and pigeons,

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but it is now known that several marine animals,

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such as elephant seals, salmon and sea turtles,

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may travel considerable distances of ocean

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before they return as adults to reproduce

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in the same natal area they were spawned.

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(light music)
(water bubbling)

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Sea turtles outlived the dinosaurs,

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yet today five of seven species are

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on the endangered species list.

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They also take a long time to reach sexual maturity,

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a decade or more, so observing them and drawing conclusions

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is a time-consuming and painstaking business.

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(light music)
(waves crashing)

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Sea turtles spend their whole lives at sea,

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except when adult females come ashore to lay eggs

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in the territory where they were born.

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The question is, how do they do it?

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It's thought that sea turtles find their birth beach

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by homing in on the chemical signature unique

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to where they were born, essentially tasting their way home.

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With these amazing abilities,

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that's what we call a real super sense.

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(upbeat music)
(waves crashing)

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(water bubbling)

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(birds squawking)

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The case of the salmon's homing instinct is another baffler.

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(water rushing)

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Most salmon are born in fresh water.

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They migrate to the ocean where they will spend four to

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five years eating and growing.

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At maturity, they return to breed and lay eggs

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in the freshwater streams they were born in.

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(water trickling)

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When they return to fresh water to breed

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it was assumed that salmon used the scent

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of the water to find their home stream,

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and certainly, the salmon's olfactory sense is astonishing.

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But now scientists are starting to question

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if salmon also navigate using the Earth's magnetic field.

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Either way, those are some super senses the salmon deploys.

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(light music)
(birds chirping)

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(crickets chirping)

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Another way, in which scent is critical for animals,

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is when it comes to marking their territory.

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Leaving a scent stamp on their territory,

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most animals don't waste a lot of time being subtle.

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The lion urinates on a tree to mark the boundaries

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of his kingdom and advise any other lions

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who come along that this tree is taken.

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The hippopotamus, however, scatters its feces

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to let intruders know who's in charge around here.

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This is called dung showering by those who study hippos,

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and something else by anyone who happens to be around.

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So far, the animals we've discussed who mark their territory

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do so unfairly standard ways, even if, like the hippo,

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they tend towards the alarming.

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But nature's endless adaptations never fail to amaze.

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(light dramatic music)

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Take the Thomson's gazelle,

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which is typically found on the African Savannah.

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The male Thomson has a particularly odd way

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of marking its territory.

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When it's mating season, they establish breeding grounds

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by leaving their scent in an unusual manner.

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Secreting a smelly substance from a gland below its eye,

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the Thomson's gazelle sticks the stuff on grass stems

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to ward off male interlopers and attract females.

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(light dramatic music)

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(grass rustling)
(bugs chirping)

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(upbeat music)
(birds chirping)

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A long away from the African plains and the woodlands

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of Queensland in South Australia

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you'll find one of those animals that we humans

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like to think of as cute.

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The koala, of course, is not to be confused

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with bears of any kind.

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For, of course, this is a marsupial

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whose closest relative is the wombat.

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This photogenic Aussie sleeps up to 20 hours a day

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and has one of the lowest brain to body ratios

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of any marsupial.

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If you come across one in the wild urinating on a tree,

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you would see it marking its territory.

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Particularly, if it was a male like this cheeky fellow.

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But the male koala scents his territory in other ways, too.

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You can distinguish the fully developed adult male koala

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by its quite visible chest cavity

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in the middle of its chest.

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It's actually a scent gland.

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And it's the scent gland on his chest

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that the adult male koala uses to mark his territory.

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Rubbing its chest against branches and twigs,

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usually at the bottom of a tree,

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produces an unusual reaction.

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This interesting activity triggers a particular sensation

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within the male koala, or buck.

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This sensation is accompanied by the secreting

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of a scented fluid that is exceptionally attractive

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to female koalas.

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When this is done, not only has the male koala marked

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his territory as a breeding ground,

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he's probably already in the mood for love.

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(crickets chirping)
(light music)

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The bolas spider, also known as the angling spider,

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uses sex pheromones to ensnare its prey.

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It's known as aggressive mimicry,

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where a predator copies something from their prey

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in order to confuse or entice it.

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The bolas spider admits a pheromone indistinguishable

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from the female moth and lures male moths to their doom.

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It's a key weapon and the bolas spider's arsenal

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as this is one spider that doesn't catch

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its victims in the usual web.

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Instead they hunt using a sticky capture blob

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at the end of a line, which they swing

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at male moths drenched, of course, in false scent.

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(light music)
(crickets chirping)

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(water rushing)
(birds chirping)

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(light music)

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Now for the final segments of the program

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to look at some genuine super sense sniffers.

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Let's begin with those lords of the forest, the wolf.

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A wolf's sense of smell is estimated

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to be 100 times stronger than humans.

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They use it to locate other members of the pack,

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their enemies, and of course, their prey.

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Scent will tell them if other wolves have been in the area,

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how many there were, male or female, and how recently.

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The wolf has several specialized scent glands on its body,

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including its back and about three inches from its tail.

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The scent it produces from these glands is as distinctive

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as fingerprints are to a forensic crime lab.

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Each and every wolf's is different.

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(suspenseful music)

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Wolves mark boundaries and trails using the smell

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from these highly individual scent glands.

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You might say their own personal calling cards.

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These trails and boundaries, or scent stations,

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can be up to 100 meters apart.

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Mankind has benefited from observing this behavior.

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As dogs have a scent ability close to that of wolves,

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training techniques have evolved

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which imitate the wolf in the wild.

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You can see this in search and rescue dogs,

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as well as police and drug detection.

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(wolves howling)

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(light music)
(birds chirping)

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Second of these super sense sniffers,

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one of the greatest noses on earth

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belongs to the mighty bear.

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For some reason it's gotten about

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that bears have poor eyesight.

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That's simply not true,

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but they rely on scent and smell even more.

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Their acute sense of smell helps them to track down food.

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For example, bears can detect a dead animal

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from 35 kilometers away.

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Smell helps bears to find mates, keep a track on rival bears

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and mothers to keep track of their cubs.

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Bears communicate with one another using scent.

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By leaving scent on trees and vegetation,

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they broadcast a message to other bears

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that may be in the neighborhood.

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Even though a bear's brain is about the third

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of the size of a human's, the area of its brain,

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which manages smell, is at least five

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times larger than ours.

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But it's not all that cerebral, far from it.

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The bear's nose is quite a remarkable device.

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Around nine inches long, for one thing,

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it really is all the better to smell you with.

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Their noses contain hundreds of miniature muscles

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which they can manipulate with the same ease

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as we might move our fingers.

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The surface area inside their noses is also vast

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by human standards and contains hundreds of receptors.

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And they have that Jacobson's organ in the roof

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of their mouth to round out this sensory arsenal.

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But what about the age old question?

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Can a bear smell your fear?

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The answer is yes and no.

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A bear can smell if you break into a cold sweat,

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but it doesn't register this as fear per se.

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So it's truer to say they can sense fear

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rather than smell it.

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On "Animal Super Senses" we touch it and feel it,

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see it and hear it, taste it and smell it like animals do.

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The senses are the star on this show

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and this episode has been no exception.

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Taste and scent are as vital in the wild

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as they are in the world we've made for ourselves.

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Maybe even more so.

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But these incredible powers of perception

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will fight again another day.

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So join us next time on "Animal Super Senses".

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{\an8}(light dramatic music)