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Whale ‘sense of smell’ revealed
"We speculate that they are actually able to smell krill and may use this to locate their prey. Krill smells like boiled cabbage"
- Professor Hans Thewissen
Bowhead whales have a previously undiscovered ability to smell the air. The finding could change our understanding of how baleen whales locate prey, as scientists suspect the bowhead whales sniff out krill swarms.
Bowhead whales have a relatively large, developed olfactory bulb that appears similar in structure to that in other animals with a developed sense of smell.
The researchers also found that bowheads have mostly functional olfactory receptor proteins, which toothed whales do not. These provide the biochemical infrastructure for the marine mammal to sample odours.
"It is remarkable that this animal, which appears to have very little use for olfaction, retained that sense," says Prof Thewissen.