Snails sence of smell

[Adam]

It may seem like a odd question but as far as I am aware snails don't have noses, do they? I have read previously that snails can smell their food and so that is how they find it/recognise it but in a book I once read 'The New Amateur Naturalist' by Nick Baker it said that a snails two smaller tentacles are covered in taste buds that are sensitive to the taste of food and can taste it up to 50cm away. So I was just wondering if a snail can actually smell their food or if they taste it, can anyone answer this?

*Renamed & moved - CroSSLeSS*

[Paul]

Snails have cephalic tentacles (the lower pair), which have chemo-receptors - to all intents and purposes they are a snails nose, and a lot more more sensitive than ours!

Whether they smell or taste is debatable. Scientists still don't really understand smell anyway; one camp argues that it's caused by molecule vibration. Taste in humans has a lot to do with smell as you'll know from having a cold - your sense of taste is practically useless without it. So, is it taste or is it smell - is there a significant difference!?

[Adam]

Hmm, yeah I see what you mean from when you have a cold, I guess it's just another thing about snails that has yet to be figured out. It's a diffucult topic since even scientists don't really understand smell.

[crossless]

www.applesnail.net/content/anatomy/senses.php

Heres good page about snails. I know it's about applesnails, but snails will function same way on land and water. There's pages about how snails stomach works etc. Really nice to read and I think you will something more from there too.

I think snails have somekind of taste and smell sence my snails have specific foods that they don't never take bite again if it's "bad" they just slime or it and find better food. Even without tasting it next when I try to serve it again.

[Adam]

Thanks for the link crossless, that's a really good site that's going to be added to my favourites, lot's of useful information

[coyote]

I read somewhere that snails also have chemoreceptors in their eyes (but not as many as in their lower tentacles).

[crossless]

Other interesting page about Helix Pomatia. Worth of reading. I learned really much reading it. www.arnobrosi.com/snails/pomatia.html

[saki114]

crossless, that is an awesome article! thanx 4 sharing!

[vallery]

I am curious about this topic now .

After following shaydeesnails advice about placing strips of carrot on the sides or top of my baby tank and she said the adults liked it too.

After I had tried with the babies and it worked out great (thank You shaydeesnail)

I tried with the adults too as she had mentioned.

I placed a strip on the sides of their tanks were there were no snails. It really took no time at all before they were sliding over to munch on the carrot slice.

In one tank so many slid over to munch the slice fell off of the side and they were all piled up on it having a great time.

It was how quickly they all came that got me thinking.

So I really never thought about snails smelling before until this.

vallery

[shaydeesnail]

I think their good sense of smell is supposed to make up for their bad eyesight, too. My African species and Discus rotundatus rush to the food the second they smell it but my Helix pomatia and Arianta arbustorum don't seem to notice the food and just carry on bumbling around until they bump into the food.
I'm not quite sure if they're simply not that enthusiastic about dinner time or it they maybe have a difference in sense of smell.

[pinkunicorn]

They have superior sense of smell, better than humans I think. Probably not dog level, but they detect food meters away. When you can't see a lot you indeed have to depend on other senses, such as smelling!

I love my little sluggies going MENTAL when I give fish food. They also have smell sensors in the top tentacles, so these little guys wave their heads around like nuts when they detect the fish food smell to locate the source.

[vallery]

I love this ,
Snails bumping around into their food and little slugs going mental and waving there heads at dinner time. I can't wait to feed mine dinner. I'm much happier when they are happy
vallery

[PennyFarthing]

I might be able to help - or confuse - the question about whether they taste or smell... My nose doesn't work very well at all, but my sense of taste is pretty good. I'm guessing it's better than most peoples', but it could just be a case of my taste buds working better than my nose. Anyway, I can taste smells - I mean, I smell things better when I'm breathing through my mouth.

Does this mean that taste and smell are the same thing, or that they work in the same way?

[pinkunicorn]

You are correct with your observation - taste and smell are connected. I recall the hypothesis on this is that we actually taste a lot of the smells we sense, because the receptors are so close to each other and probably work together. It's not surprising, given both tastes and smells are caused by similar or the exact same chemical compounds, depending on the chemical. It's funny with artificial aromas, you can eat a strawberry candy and then smell a perfume or a lipbalm with the exact same strawberry aroma. The artificial flavourings used are the same. It's a bit more complex with natural flavours and smells. An apple's flavour is a combination of several chemicals when we eat it as a fruit, but there's also a clearly recognisable apple aroma ester that industries use, which is also present in the apple fruit. But the apple will always have more complex flavour because it doesn't depend on a single chemical alone.

Edit: Isn't that funny, I swapped my strawberry example for apple without noticing. I am eating an apple and I was trying to smell and taste it at the same time to see if I get even more flavour out of it lol.. and then the apple got into my text.

That brings to mind how smells and flavours actually affect our behaviours. And how big companies know this, and how they use flavours to guide shopping behaviour etc. When you smell fresh bread, you'd more likely to buy it than if you just see fresh bread. You can have the exact same two displays, but the one with fresh bread smell will sell more bread. Another example is movie theatres with popcorn smell, and candy shops with candy smell.

And it's not always the candy or the popcorn or the bread that is emitting the aromas, but it can be an artificial flavouring poured into the air from an artificial source. If a candy shop smells suspiciously like candy all the time, they're probably using candy flavoured "air refreshers".

[vallery]

That is interesting.
I never really thought of shops using artificial odor to attract customers.

If someone can't smell at all I wonder if they can taste?

Vallery

[PennyFarthing]

Oct 10, 2012 4:25:33 GMT vallery said:

If someone can't smell at all I wonder if they can taste?

Perhaps not, Vallery. That would explain why bad colds can make people lose their sense of taste as well as their sense of smell.

This is a really interesting thread!

[pinkunicorn]

The artificial aroma revelation was a surprise to me when I read it the first time. I've taken a few courses on industrial food production as a side to my nutrition studies and we get to read food industry insider magazines, which are full of research how to sell more food to people... it's fascinating and a little bit frightening at the same time. There's billions euros and dollars put into this kind of research, from smells in the shop to the visual side of how to arrange the shelves to sell more...

And yes, that's also correct that when one loses the sense of smell one also loses part of tastes. Some flavours are based on both the smell and the taste so such foods would lose most of their taste or would taste different. There's also tastes that are less dependent on the smell, which would be accordingly less affected. My boyfriend also has lessened sense of smell and he tells me that he also tastes some flavours as a lot stronger like Penny mentioned. That makes sense. If the loss of a sense is temporary it's likely to affect us more, or feel like it affects us more like sudden blindness is quite incapacitating. But the other senses will pick up the slack and become more "attuned" to tell us about the surroundings, if the blindness or lack of smell continues for longer.

A friend of mine who is blind told me, that he went through that adjustment several times. He didn't lose his sight in one go but slowly over 20 years, so his senses were just a little bit behind in adjusting all that time. Whenever he had adjusted to the new lack of sight he would go more blind and have to adjust again. So what takes for most blind people about 5 years maybe took him over 20. Lesson of the day: better to lose a sense entirely at once than slowly over a long time.

[vallery]

:)Hi pinkunicorn

I have to tell you I really enjoy reading your posts. I find them so interesting and thought provoking. As well so educational. And I love that you can be kind and considerate and also share your humor. I love humor . And your love for your pets is wonderful.I hope that you write books one day because I would definitely read them.


I am sharing this because your struggles of your friend and his hearing lose made me think about a situation I have. I have inner ear disease so I am slowly loosing my hearing and will eventually go deaf but very slowly so I am must slowly adjust but for me it is a constant and slow process, not in in small durations now and then like your friend and I think that is lucky for me. Difficult for the people in my life as they forget and get frustrated repeating them selves etc.
When I have an attack though I almost completely loose my hearing and noises and voices I can hear, but so distorted I can't understand them. So I know it sounds awful but I would rather loose it completely at these time of attacks and in the long run as I have to because of the distortion.

Thank you for all your great post I hope you continue then.
vallery

[pinkunicorn]

That's terrible. Sorry to hear that. It takes a lot of adjusting, and can be very frustrating indeed. I hope your eyesight is good, or good enough. My friend is nowadays almost completely dependent on his hearing, and says the one thing he's most terrified of is losing his hearing. Those two senses are really the most important ones for many things in life, and losing both can mean practically isolation from the world.

I'm glad you enjoy my long ramblings, though! I'm a science nerd and can go on and on about the small but from a scientific perspective fascinating everyday matters, and if my ramblings help people learn something new about the world around, then that makes me happy. I'd love to write a book about nutrition one day to combat all the pseudoscientific nutrition nonsense that gets published all the time, since that area is my "official" focus... Or, despite it being "human nutrition" in particular, maybe they could let me write my (one day, eventual) doctoral thesis about snail nutrition?

[vallery]

Hi pinkunicorn ,

Thank You. My eyesight is just going with my nearsitedness but my farsitedness is perfectly fine. I have been trying to adjust to glasses and having to take them on and of due to the near and far site and I am terrible for loosing them, accidently breaking them (total clutz).

Great information on the maternal snail thread I added a post I am very curious about jembolines last post. Hope you reply to that.

vallery