Lol, done that before. Was maybe 7? Lol, I was swinging and a fly or something went into my mouth and I swallowed it. Talk about kinda freaking as a kid.
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And this will have me associating the taste of stink bugs with raspeberries until the day I die.
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I thought you were going to give an example of another language being more adequate for describing smells. On what basis are you proposing that English is worse for this than other languages? I personally would suspect that the same issue applies in all languages, except perhaps to specific catalogues of smells that are especially familiar to particular small language communities.
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Welcome to the forum!
I’m also fluent in Hebrew, and I can tell you it’s not much better at describing smells. Can’t speak for other languages… maybe one of them really is good at it!
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I actually like the defense smell of Carabus species - the scent is pungent when too close, but from a certain distance, at least to me it is a very pleasant and interesting smell - a sweet-spicy something. I have also been wondering for some time whether similiar looking species of that genus can actually be distinguished by their smell; maybe to be used in the next field guide :-D
Also, ants: The Citronella ant from the genus Lasius isn’t named for no reason, and during a scientific talk from a myrmecologist (which took place on the last possible day before the public shutdown) I had an ant trail - as fate would have it - going right under my chair. Mentioned it to the speaker and he took one ant between two fingers, smelled it, and had it identified as Lasius emarginatus. Doing the same, I certainly could sense a certain odor, but would not dare to use it as a defining feature for species ID.
We’re now slightly getting side-tracked by switching sensory perception, but the heck, tasting is almost smelling and I like the story:
The very same person also had a scientific essay published last year, where he reflected upon the similarities of two - unrelated - ant species, and whether it might be some sort of mimikry. So he did a science and put himself into the role of an ant predator: helping himself with some individuals of each species, only one had a deterring taste - so he concluded a form of Batesian mimikry developed by the tasteless species.
Recalling his remarks upon my first encounter with the allegedly bad-tasting species - curious as I am - I wanted to confirm his experience and decided for some entomophagy (not before having it iNatted, of course!).
The result was disappointing and I assumed that one tiny ant might not have been sufficient to taste something. So, after the aforementioned talk, I approached him and told him I could not replicate his experience. Showing him the picture on iNat, he responded: ‘It was an ant queen you ate, they apparently don’t develop this taste.’
Now I feel bad for having eaten a queen…
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French (which I speak) is better than English at describing smells, and several Asian languages are significantly better. Same with the Umpila language from Australia. (English is better for describing visual features, such as colour and shape).
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You know, I was wondering the other day if the reason we think humans have a poor sense of smell is because we are not brought up (trained/educated) to identify odors very much. If we had a bigger olfactory vocabulary from early childhood, perhaps more of us would be super smellers and super tasters?
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That is probably true, but I think it is also genetic.
I have always had a very finely tuned and discriminating sense of smell, and the same with my sense of taste too. A lot of people can’t smell what I can smell, or taste what I can taste.
This ability has some very positive aspects to it, and some very negative ones too.
But even though English does not have a wide vocabulary for taste or smell, I can usually describe a smell by likening it to other smells, and likewise with tastes.
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Plant tip: another way to smell a plant (besides crushing/tearing a leaf) is to cup your hands over the tip of a branch, so that your hands form fairly closed ball, and put your mouth to the opening between your thumbs and breath out slowly. Then you put your nose to the opening and sniff. The moisture of your breath helps volatilize the leaf scents. Maybe if you were already in a very humid environment the difference wouldn’t be noticeable, but it’s very effective on say, creosote bushes in the Mojave desert.
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Cool! I’ll have to try that with the ants! I’ve heard that fire ants are supposed to taste like lemon drops. Haven’t verified yet. Been a little chicken, lol. (Although I did finally get around to eating raw stinging nettle. It really doesn’t sting, and actually tastes pretty good.)
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Thanks! Gonna try that!
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I can definitely confirm that ladybugs have a distinctive smell. At least the Asian ladybugs that swarm our house every fall. We’ve had to vacuum them up many times and it stinks. I can also confirm, unfortunately, that they do not taste any better, as ive had several fly into my mouth.
Brown marmorated stinkbugs also smell, unsurprisingly.
Working in grasslands, a lot of things seem to have a sweet hay scent, a bit like vanilla, which I presume is usually caused by coumarin or perhaps a derivative. This time of year, I can usually be found nibbling on a stalk of sweet vernal grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum), pretty commonly found in all but the most pristine grasslands. It’s the same chemical that gives flavor and odor to tonka beans, sweet woodruff, and hay-scented fern.
I’m indebted to Emily Tinalli, of Mt Cuba Center, for showing me that prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) has a delicate odor when flowering. We get some big monocultures of it in places on the serpentine barrens, and you can definitely smell it wafting off the grassland in fall. I find it similar to the coumarin/hay odor, but others have compared it to coriander and buttered popcorn.
I tried smelling a carrion flower once. (Smilax pulverulenta or S. herbacea.) Description is accurate, 0/10, would not repeat; it was putrid!
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I have several but one in particular was a very smelly and stinky experience. I moved a few years ago from my original home but before I moved there was something really odd in the back yard growing in a mulch pile we had. It was fungus known as a stink horn and boy was it just a weird experience all in all. The fungus looked like a male’s reproductive organ. It’s smelly was an odor that was super pungent and was just disgusting but the flies seemed to like it very much. It was not really a negative feeling but it did send my senses on a wacky ride. It was just incredible. The flies sure love the stink horn. I am not sure the species I uploaded the jury is still out on that one but yeah using smells to describe what you find really help determine what it might be.
Plants I have had some experience with the golden rods and some other wildflowers. One plant does come to mind though when it comes to one of my favorite smells. The Carolina Laurel Cherry is so cool it looks nice but if you take a leaf and crush it up really finely you can smell where its namesake comes from. For a brief time you can smell the aroma of cherries.
Now for a really cool one that has nothing to do with scent but more sight is from Georgia. There is a plant that grows in the swamp land that I have only seen once in my entire lifetime and that was back when I was six about twenty years ago for me. We were at the Okiee Fenokie Swamp and we were on an boat tour in a swamp boat and our tour director showed us a plant and he tore off some leaves and handed them to us and he told us to rub it in our hands and after awhile it looked like soapsuds. So kind of a sense thing going on here but hey that is how we learn more about wildlife. We can do more than just see it, if it is edible we can taste it, if it has a cool ability and if it is not toxic we can touch, rub, and smell stuff. Nature is so cool this way. Nature has all kinds of cool surprises up its sleeve you just have to dig a little deeper and you have to look closer and sometimes you have to get a little dirty and in the thick of it all to find out more of nature’s wonder.
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Oh, yeah, those stink horns do not smell nice, Maybe like something rotting? I got really freaked out by a stink horn many years ago. I was just gardening and glanced over to see at what appeared to be a crazy reddish finger poking out of the ground. It had a bit of cap on it that looked like a fingernail. I’m like, ‘What in all Hallow’s Eve is THIS thing!!!? Is it an animal? A plant? A supernatural phenomena?‘ I posted the picture and was told it was a stink horn fungus. So, I contacted the local mycological society. One of them drove 40 miles to my house to photograph it.
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40 miles for a stinkhorn? It must have been an unusual species. They’re not rare, at least not in Ontario.
I think stink horns are indeed a bit unusual in California.
One plant that I often find first by odor is Galax. And it’s a bit of a mystery about what part of the plant produces the odor.
An insect that I ID by smell is Cicindela punctulata. Smells like juicyfruit gum.
Moths just have a non-descript musty smell. Now if I could smell pheromones…
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Brown marmorated stink bugs have ruined cilantro for me personally
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