Domestic cats respond differently to the smell of their owner than to that of an unknown human, which suggests that they can identify those who know based only on smell.
A study in charge of a team from the University of Agriculture of Tokyo, published in the scientific journal PLOS One, found that felines spend more time sniffing the smell of a stranger than that of its owner.
The team used thirty domestic cats to which they presented plastic tubes containing rods that had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear and between the fingers of their owner’s feet or a human they did not know.
Thus, they observed that the animals spent much more time sniffing unknown odors than those of their owner or an empty tube.
The smells
The researchers also found that, at the beginning, the unknown odors with the right nasal grave smelled more, but changed to the left as they familiarized themselves with the smell.
Find: study discovers the genetic mutation that makes orange cats unique
The fact that cats prefer to investigate new odors with the right nasal grave suggests that they can favor different hemispheres of their brain for different tasks, a phenomenon that has been previously demonstrated in other animals, including dogs, fish and birds.
The team also asked the owners of the cats to fill in an online questionnaire to evaluate the personality of their pet and the relationship they had with it.
The male cats with more strange or anxious personalities tended to smell each tube repeatedly, while the most pleasant did it more calmly. However, no personality effect on the behavior of cats during the experiment was observed.
In addition, they observed the characteristic behavior of rubbing (marking) that occurs after the smell, indicating that this may be an exploratory attitude that precedes the rubbing of the smell by the animal.
With EFE information
Do you like photos and news? Follow us on our Instagram
