this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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Science Memes

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Ant smell (mander.xyz)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Wait are you telling me y’all actually don’t smell ants? They’re a weird and kinda smell like blue cheese. Definitely the smellier of insects.

[–] clay_pidgin 82 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I've never heard of insects having a smell, other than like stinkbugs!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Wait are u telling me bugs don’t smell to you?

[–] UnRelatedBurner 21 points 5 months ago

neither to me, I think. Truth is, I never tried sniffing an ant, I'll sniff them up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I don’t remember ever smelling a bug either, unless it was a stink bug

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I can smell roaches but that's it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I don't smell stinkbugs, either... Apparently that's also genetic.

But have you smelled ladybugs? Absolutely foul.

[–] clay_pidgin 2 points 5 months ago

I've never actually smelled a stinkbug, now that I think of it. I catch and release by hand for my house without issue. Never noticed a ladybug smell either. Interesting!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The only time I've smelt ants is when they get crushed. Are you telling me you could smell an ant trail just by walking into a room?

[–] jballs 22 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Are you telling me that if you step on an ant and crush it, you can smell it?! Wtf is going on in this thread??

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Science.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My mind is being blown so much ITT. I don't recall any insect ever having a smell, crushed or otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ladybugs have a weird smell when you handle them. Smells a bit like earwax.
Also, from the time when I hatched flies as food animals, flies really stink but you don’t normally notice because you don’t smell it when it’s just one. Put 100 flies in a bucket and they STINK.
No idea what’s going on with the ants though. I’m still not convinced this isn’t a hoax.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You can smell earwax?!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, it’s a weird bitter smell. Can’t really compare it to anything else. Except for the deterrent that ladybugs spray, I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I mean, I don't think I can smell them as described, but crushed I can clearly smell the formic acid.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I don't mean just stepping on an ant. I mean when you were little and climbing a tree or playing on the ground and crushed some ants, smelled your hand to figure out what it was, and it smelled like ants...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I smell them outdoors from quite a long distance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What a shitty superpower

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

No doubt... It certainly seems useless so far but when the ant wars start you'll all want me on your team.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Never in my life has an ant had any smell whatsoever. I was today years old when I realized people could smell ants.

In fact, I’ll go one step further. I grew up on a farm, tons of bugs. The only bug that I can ever remember smelling are those stupid Asian stink bugs invasive thingies that seem to have proliferated in the northeast US recently. When you squish them, they smell like green apples.

I can’t think of any other bug that smells at all - even when they are squished.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm convinced these people are just making it up, I've been alive nearly 40 years and not once heard of this being a thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I mean, they probably DO smell - but like I’ve never gotten on my hands and knees and sniffed any bug up close. Maybe these people are more sensitive to smells and can pick them up yards away - or a whole colony?

But ya it’s weird that I’ve never heard of this at all. I had heard of people born with tails or horns, females with beards, color blindness, tiger stripes on skin, the asparagus thing, rain man, hemaphrodites, on and on…

But today I learned ants smell ;)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I can smell them from many many yards away.

There is definitely no need to get close or try to smell them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

So weird! Ants are everywhere. It must get annoying if they stink…

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Can you smell them on the floor if you're standing up? How close do you have to be?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Ya on the floor, outside smells like bugs a bit too (and dirty and a million other things).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I can smell ant hills that are far enough that I can't see them from an open car window.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Blue cheese? They smell like blood and iron to me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Formic acid does really smells like steel tastes. But I'd blame the nickel for the taste, iron tastes differently.