Recording scents

General
1

How an organism smells is often diagnostic. Is there an app or extension to record it?

I am also disappointed that brochures of parks put all the effort in glossy photos but not a single scratchy scent sample. What can we do?

This is my first topic. Please be gentle.

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2

Write in the comment field what it smells like

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3

I recently started two projects for the scent of flowers and the scent of leaves:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/the-aroma-of-flowers
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/the-aroma-of-leaves

These require an observation field for each to be filled out before it can be added to the project. I generally record the scents in the notes first and then copy them into the observation field later when I add them to the projects.

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4

Scent (and taste) can be a powerful tool for identification since the smell of an organism can indicate something about its chemical profile. But for the same reason, ā€œrecording scentsā€ is extremely difficult, it requires the same chemicals to be reproduced in the same ratios as the scent to be recorded. Many of these organic chemicals donā€™t preserve well and/or are unstable in the type of medium in which we might store them. Any reproduction of a biological scent is therefore likely to be only a crude approximation, it is seldom practical to try reproducing a scent using a scratch-and-sniff type of record.

A more practical option is to try and record the scent using language, comparing the smell to other smells familiar to people. This is still a rather crude approximation since peopleā€™s perceptions of smell are subjective, but it can still be extremely useful in some circumstances and is well worth pursuing.

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5

one aroma that I absolutely love is the smell of sycamore trees on a humid day (especially in the morning). But describing that scent? oof.

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Iā€™ve imagined what it would be like if you could somehow record a scent on your phone and upload it to iNat. Iā€™m sure a lot of ā€œskunkā€ observations would be misidentified as something else :-P

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7

I joined your Leaves project and added some Australian plants.
I am not into sweet florals but Iā€™ll to records some that are eligible on the Flowers.

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8

Iā€™ve said many times Iā€™d like smell-o-vision camerasā€¦ I know way way too many people who would abuse that with terrible odors!

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9

I realised that scratchies are really out of date.

There is Madeleine the headspace capture camera and some serious portable analytical devices.
On demand reproduction would need hundreds of volatiles.
When I ask for a relaxing mixed forest scent I would get ā€˜Please replace the alpha-pinene cartridgeā€™

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Just turn the volume down and you get jasmine

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11

I figured this would be a good April Foolā€™s announcement for iNat.

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I feel this topic would be incomplete without some comment about cameras/phones needing ā€˜scent-sorsā€™ā€¦

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13

I love this idea of smells? No idea how it could be implemented but yes!

14

I have ideas (anyone can have ideas that does not work)

  • Signal the Enterprise to visit us from the future and set it up
  • Wait a couple of decades for the current bulky equipment to become cheap and miniature
  • Use carrier pigeons
15

I love that idea. Reminds me of a 1980s movie by John Waters with Devine called Polyester with scratch and sniff Odorama cards

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The scratch and sniff cards for Polyester are available again, I just need to find it on VHS for authentic 80ā€™s experience.