SMELL YOU LATER, LOSERS – Dumbo tells rats, dogs... humans Few people can fail to notice that an elephant's appendage is way bigger than a dog's, but it may come as more surprise that it can use it better too. Boffins have named elephants as the top sniffers in the animal kingdom, possessing twice as many functional olfactory receptors (ORs) genes as hounds. ORs help organisms detect …
Has this actually been compared, by analysis of any recovered mammoth DNA?
Is it certain that these genes are active in the elephant and that an elephant does have a better sense of smell because of this?
Has anyone tried training and testing elephants to see if they can replace sniffer dogs ?
Good point.
It also seems strange that A Beagle can sniff a rat in a field and go straight to it. Yet the rat, with a supposedly superior sense of smell, doesn't seem to notice the Beagle coming.
Does having more olfactory receptor genes mean that you can locate the source of smells better? All the cats I've had can smell when there's fish but they don't really know where it is. Whereas my dos know where food on the table is even when they can't see it.
Either way I imagine blood hounds and their ilk are fairly safe as even if we can train elephants it seems likely that it's impractical to use them for tracking or in airports for drug searches.
it's impractical to use them for tracking or in airports for drug searches.
I disagree. Elephants are obviously larger, but then they don't actually need to go to the place where they're sniffing. If you put one between two security lanes, it can move its smelling device around, and so reach items at different angles and heights with ease.
In the case of tracking, they're even better. Why go foxhunting with a pack of hounds and a horse, when you can just take an elephant, which does both. I guess the elephant wouldn't be quite so good at jumping fences...
But then if you can't go over, you can always go through.
In fact we should replace police dogs and horses entirely with police elephants. They'd be much better for riot control, can do sniffing, as well as dealing with armed criminals. OK, they might not be able to delicately hold their knife-arm in their jaws (with the promise of more pain to come if you struggle). But on the other hand, once a few criminals have been stomped into a paste on the ground, the others will learn. Plus it cuts down on prison costs.
Also elephants wouldn't be endangered if every police force in the world had a few hundred of them.
I'm liking this more and more. Anyone want to join me in founding The Elephant Party? Our policies are elephants for the police, subsidised elephants for anyone who wants one, and replacing 50% of horse racing with elephant racing. Then we can have equal opportunities for fat jockeys, who still have a chance to win a race.
Another policy. Helper elephants for old people. They've got to have extra-wide doorways because of wheelchair access, so the elephants will fit in your kitchen, they can pass you the stuff you need with their trunk. And help with other household tasks. They'd be great at bath-time.
I wonder how big the elephant-flap would need to be?
Abolish guide dogs, and replace them with guide-elephants. I don't know why, but it sounds fun. Elephants would surely be better than those hearing dogs for the deaf too. Much bigger ears.
I'd better stop now. I think it's looking at the accounts this morning that's done it to me. My brain hurts. Either that or this is what having a genius idea feels like...
"Another policy. Helper elephants for old people. They've got to have extra-wide doorways because of wheelchair access, so the elephants will fit in your kitchen, they can pass you the stuff you need with their trunk. And help with other household tasks. They'd be great at bath-time."
You need to spend more time with some real old people.
That sense of smell will make the elephants head explode quick quickly.
Not a football supporter. If you've ever noticed on news reports, it takes at least 100 football supporters in a tightly packed group before one of them has enough courage to throw the obligatory plastic chair at the police or opposing teams supporters. How they think their puny 3m (1 trunk) lob will reach its target when the 'enemy' are 100m away is anyones guess.
I'd love to see St Bernards replaced with elephants, with a rather large barrel of something slung under their chins to revive the avalanche victim!
It also seems strange that A Beagle can sniff a rat in a field and go straight to it. Yet the rat, with a supposedly superior sense of smell, doesn't seem to notice the Beagle coming.
I'd wager the beagle can smell the trail of particles such as a hair, sloughed off skin cells, etc. left by the rat in addition to any airborne scents and it's not likely the rat happens to be the one with the downwind advantage. After all, the beagle is looking for a rat, the rat isn't necessarily looking for a beagle.
"It also seems strange that A Beagle can sniff a rat in a field and go straight to it. Yet the rat, with a supposedly superior sense of smell, doesn't seem to notice the Beagle coming."
Well, being downwind helps a lot to avoid detection. If you ever spot wild animals, SPECIALLY those famous for biting, maiming, raking, thrashing, or trampling down humans, try to move away from them, while being downwind.
And rats are well aware of our smell, (and our dog's), being the invaders of our cities and sewers. They are however, not used to having a Beagle trained to sick (seek?) them out.
I read something recently saying Polar Bears have a sense of smell 2100 times better than a human and that they can smell a seal through 3 feet of ice ( not too sure how smell permeates through ice).
Their brains devote 5 times as much processing power to the sense of smell as a human and the article (which I can no longer find) said they have the most potent sense of smell.
I think we need to get some elephants out on the ice in a seal sniffing competition with a couple of Polar Bears.
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