Exploring Nature: Can Birds Smell?

Do birds have a sense of smell? Are they capable of smelling things, or just dependent on taste, sight and hearing?

To answer this question, a lady named Betsy Bangs and a gas pipe line both played major roles.

Betsy was a medical illustrator with limited training in biology, but she studied olfactory functions and noted that many birds had elaborate nasal tissues that probabl allowed them to detect odors. Base on her research, she listed the birds with the largest olfactory lobes, in descending order, as snow petrel, kiwi, petrel, turkey vulture, nightja hoatzin, rail, feral pigeon, shorebir domestic owl and songbird.

Her theory was that these large lobes indicated an ability to smell. And this theory prompted research that proved this was the case.

And just to add a practical demonstration that birds can smell, a pipeline leaked in California and a smelly gas, ethyl mercaptan, leaked out. This gas smells like rotten cabbage and as soon as it leaked out, the area was visited by a great flock of turkey vultures, all drawn by the smell of a possible meal.

Birds are not alone among animals with a well-developed sense of smell. Bloodhounds also come to mind.

But the overall champion smeller is the African elephant. With its sensitive snozzle, it can smell water from 12 miles away.