Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: chris on 13/03/2016 09:44:32
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Dogs have impressive smelling abilities, as evidence by their ability to sniff out the trail taken by a person or animal they are pursuing, or even track down a person with disease (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/dog-doctors/).
But what endows them with this ability, and how much better is a dog at picking up odours than a human?
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probably more sensory nerves/neurons in their nose allowing the dogs mind to carry the sensation much longer than we can and compare the sensation at much greater depth with the sensory memories in their brain
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Their noses are closer to the ground, so they find it easier to follow scents laid down on the ground.
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A human nose has about 5m scent receptors whereas a beagle has over 200m, bloodhound 300m. Also the areas of the brain which processes scent is 40 times larger than in humans.
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/dogsenses.htm