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avatar_Takama

Recognizing individuals by Smell

Started by Takama, December 04, 2012, 12:09:29 AM

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Takama

Title says it,   Is it possible for Lets say, a Mother Dinosaur to recognize the Blood/Urine left by her child?



ZoPteryx

The most likely answer is yes, dinosaurs were very sophisticated creatures, many of which had an excellent sense of smell.  The only thing I'm not sure of is if dinos had scent glands like a mammal.  With or without them though, they could still probably learn a lot about eachother through smell.

Gryphoceratops

#2
Cool question.  I would approach this question by looking at animals today that are related.

Many birds don't have good senses of smell but a few do- some new world vultures and procelariformes or "tube-noses" like albatross.  I can see if I can contact one of my ornithologist friends about this since I don't know the answer myself. 

Crocodilians- I think they rely mostly on sound to communicate between mother and young.  I know crocodiles have scent glands on the bottom of their necks but as far as I know these are used to release pheromones when mating.  I have also seen them open up when the animal is stressed out.  No idea if they can tell bloodlines with them though. 

amargasaurus cazaui

I did always wonder about that the part in Bakker's book "Raptor Red" where the raptor is able to scent all the different plants, and animals as well as recognize the scent of each set of urine and droppings. The book makes a comment how the animals scent glands are so well adapted and I always wondered what the evidence was for introducing that into the book.
  I have read the various thoughts about that book posted in the forum, and that many have found his book to be a work of pure fiction, so I wondered if that part was just "more of the magic" or had factual basis.
Authors with varying competence have suggested dinosaurs disappeared because of meteorites...God's will, raids by little green hunters in flying saucers, lack of standing room in Noah's Ark, and palaeoweltschmerzā€”Glenn Jepsen


Horridus

Quote from: Gryphoceratops on December 04, 2012, 10:57:14 PM
Many birds don't have good senses of smell but a few do- new world vultures and procelariformes or "tube-noses" like albatross.  I can see if I can contact one of my ornithologist friends about this since I don't know the answer myself. 
In his book Bird Sense, Tim Birkhead dedicated a chapter to smell, noting that a lot more birds are likely to have a good sense of smell than many people suspect. I'll have to dig it out for some quotes, though. For a surprisingly long time, the idea that birds did not have a sense of smell at all, and that eg. vultures found their food through other means, was taken seriously...
All you need is love...in the time of chasmosaurs http://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/
@Mhorridus

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