Humans have about five million scent cells, while wolves have 200 million. The olfactory center in a human’s brain is the size of a pea, while a wolf’s is the size of a fist. Wolves can smell other animals from more than a mile away, using pheromones to gather information about that animal. A wolf can recognize a member of their pack just by scent. Their specialized scent glands are as unique as a human’s fingerprint.
— Read more in What makes sense to a wolf at Pikes Peak Courier.
My aging dog is fascinating in this regard. His vision is low, and he can hear a lot but doesn’t locate sounds effectively. He’s hardly limited at all because he smells so much and so intelligently. I’m convinced he constantly updates a detailed mental map/timeline of materials and blends and concentrations. When seeking an odor source, he often uses a fairly systematic spiral route to zeto in on it. I can’t imagine what that feels like– not just the amount of sensory data but also how intensively he processes it all the time. I guess it’s like asking a sighted person what vision feels like. Pretty hard to describe! I love trying (even though failing) to get inside his head while he’s in motion.
Your dear doggo is very lucky to have you appreciating his special abilities! I agree dogs do have mental “smell maps” that are as real to them as humans’ visual maps.
Wolves are beautiful, fascinating creatures. Saw many of them and coyotes where I used to reside.
This reminds me of the Radio Lab episode about seeing color and the species of shrimp that have many more color cones than humans do and thus can see more colors. So fascinating!
Most fascinating the comparison with scent ID and fingerprint ID. But I think we humans have more and better scent processing power than we normally use, pea-sized faculty or not! For example, don’t most of us know smells about weather changing if we thought about it? Must also put in a word for kitties, who are solitary predators. Their little noses go sniff-sniff-sniff all day long.