You guys smell that? Credit: john michael evan potter / Shutterstock Next time you’re deciding whether to throw out some questionable produce, you might want to turn to an elephant. That’s because the lumbering pachyderms turn out to have more genes coding for olfactory receptors (which detect smells) than any other known mammal — more than twice that found in dogs, and almost five times more than humans. Sorry, Fido, you’ve been genetically outsmelled.
The researchers started out studying the OR repertoire (as they call the collection of olfaction genes) in 13 mammal species, from primates to pachyderms. Among this group they identified more than 10,000 different genes that code for scent receptors. Most animals had a nearly unique repertoire, with only three genes in common amongst all the species. The authors were surprised to find that the African elephant came out way ahead of every other studied species, with ...
