A 2014 study found that many animals have a stronger sense of smell than humans. Researchers explored the smell receptors of 13 mammals and found that the African elephant has the most with 1,948 smell receptors, followed by rats, cows, horses, and dogs. Humans have 396, putting us in ninth place, just ahead of chimpanzees.
Interestingly enough, some creatures like male silkmoths can detect a single molecule among 100 quadrillion air molecules, even without a nose. Let’s learn more about the animals with the strongest sense of smell.
1. Elephants
Elephants have a great sense of smell, which helps them find water, locate food, and communicate with other elephants. In fact, they can detect water from 12 miles away and remember where they found it before. Elephants can even tell the amount of food in buckets using their nose.
2. Rats
Like elephants, rats use their strong sense of smell to find food, avoid danger, and talk to each other. They have many genes for smelling different odors, which is why experts use them in disease research, including detecting tuberculosis in some countries.
As you can notice, rats play a key role in today’s world.
3. Cows
Cows make good pets and might look calm as they graze, but they actually have a strong sense of smell. Their keen noses help them find food, choose the best grasses and plants, and even detect predators.
4. Horses
Horses have sensitive noses that help them recognize other horses and learn about their health, sex, and status. They can even tell how a human is feeling just by smelling. With 300 million smell receptors, it’s no surprise their sense of smell is so strong.
Fun fact: Horses sleep standing up to quickly flee from predators if needed.
5. Turkey vultures
Turkey vultures have a great sense of smell, perfect for finding their food—carrion. They can detect dead animals from over a mile away. Turkey vultures also have the largest olfactory system of any bird, with more mitral cells (which send smell information to the brain) than any other animal studied.
6. Bloodhounds
Bloodhounds have the best sense of smell among dogs with about 300 million scent receptors and their floppy ears that help capture scents.
They can track a scent for over 130 miles and follow 300-hour-old trails. This is why they’re used for tracking missing people and fugitives. Their tracking precision is so reliable that it can even be used as evidence in court.
7. Bears
Bears can detect food, cubs, and threats from miles away. Polar bears can even detect seals through thick ice. Their large olfactory bulbs and big nasal areas make their sense of smell sharp.
8. Sharks
Sharks can detect a single drop of blood in 10 billion drops of water. This skill helps them find prey, navigate the ocean, and locate mates.
Like bears, sharks have large olfactory bulbs in their brains, and their sense of smell works differently from humans. Unlike us, sharks don’t use their nostrils for breathing. Instead, they have two nares on their heads just for smelling. Water flows into these nostrils, where chemicals stimulate their olfactory receptors.
Fun fact: You can actually own a pet shark, just not some of the most dangerous ones.
9. Wolves
Wolves have a strong sense of smell that helps them hunt, mark their territory, and interact with their pack. They can smell prey, dead animals, and other wolves from far away. The sense of smell of wolves is 100,000 times better than humans.
10. Moths
Male moths can smell female moths from kilometers away, helping them find mates in the dark using the scent receptors on their antennae. Female moths, on the other hand, use these scents to judge the health of potential mates.
Fun fact: While they fall under the same Lepidoptera order of insects, butterflies and moths aren’t the same.
11. Pigs
Pigs have some of the strongest noses among domesticated animals. In the wild, they spend a lot of time digging in the dirt to find food. Their unique snout shape helps them sniff out food buried up to 25 feet underground, making them excellent truffle hunters. They can even smell things that humans can’t detect.
12. Salmon
Salmon can find their way back to their birthplaces each year thanks to their amazing sense of smell. As young fish, they learn the scents of their home and can detect them even when they’re incredibly faint, as low as one part in 80 billion in the water.
13. Ants
Ants communicate and find their way around through their sense of smell. They release and detect chemical signals to locate food, recognize other ants, and warn of danger.
Ants have many odor receptors, so they can smell a lot of different chemicals. That’s why they’re now being trained by researchers to detect cancer cells.
14. Bees
Bees find flowers and tell different ones apart from far away thanks to their exceptional sense of smell. They can even detect and remember specific scents, which helps them gather nectar and return to their hive.
Their antennae have special receptors for picking up tiny amounts of floral smells. This ability is also important for their dance language, which they use to show other bees where to find food.
15. Star-Nosed Moles
Star-nosed moles have a great sense of touch and they can smell underwater, which is pretty unique for mammals. When hunting in water, they blow bubbles from their nostrils and sniff them back in to catch scent molecules from their prey.
