Land Animals

Land animals use scent to communicate dominance, sexual attractiveness, to convey information about territorial holdings and much more. I will be discussing how mice, cats and dogs use their sense of smell to communicate as well as gain information about their surroundings.

Mice

Mice leave urinary markings that contain a pattern of major urinary proteins (MUPS) that allow them to distinguish another male’s scent from their own. Not only do these give information about the source of the urine, their urine also contains sex-specific volatile pheromones that are attractive to both female and male mice. It is interesting to note that these pheromones have been shown to stimulate aggression between males and have reproductive priming effects on females. Not only does their urine signal the species and sex of the scent owner and but it also plays a part in signaling social status. (Nevison, Armstrong, Beynon, Humphries & Hurst, 2003)

Kangaroo rats

Unlike mice who leave urinary marks to display dominance, kangaroo rats are interesting in that they use scents deposited at sand-bathing sites for social communication to establish dominance hierarchical relationships (Shier & Randall, 2007). It is interesting to note that dominant kangaroo rats sand-bathed at higher rates than subordinates. This is thought to be a strategy for the rats to advertise competitive ability, whereas subordinate kangaroo rats foot-drummed from inside the burrows that seem to indicate an unwillingness to interact. This recognition and communication of dominance status can be important means of minimizing costly interactions and resolving interactions without severe aggression. (Shier & Randall, 2007)

Cats

            Cats use a variety of marking behaviors to communicate, including urine, feces, claws and scent glands. Unique to the cat, cats have a special “scent analyzer” called a vemeronasal organ located above the roof of the mouth that is used for analyzing pheromones. This organ is most utilized for examining pheromones found in urine, but the cat will also utilize this analyzer whenever it comes across an interesting scent. The scent is collected in the mouth and the tongue transfers it up to the ducts located just behind the front teeth. If you have a cat you will notice that when they are engaging in this, their mouth will be partially open with the upper lip curled which is known as the flehman response.

            Similar to the mice discussed earlier, cats also engage in urine marking. This is a very effective form of communication that cats use to convey multiple messages. Urine marking is used to mark territory, threaten, announce their arrival, engage in dispute without confronting each other, or exchange information. Cats also engage in rubbing, this action makes the cat release pheromones which contain information about the cat, and other cats use this information to figure out if the cat is male or female, sexually available, and to determine how long ago the scent was left. Rubbing also allows them to mark territory, in a household with multiple males, higher-ranking cats engage in more facial rubbing than the lower ranking ones similar to the dominant kangaroo rats that engaged in more sand-bathing compared to subordinates. In addition, I was surprised to find out that rubbing also allows cats to collect or combine scents as well as bond and show respect from a lower-ranking cat to a higher-ranking one. Bonding behavior is called bunting and may also be related to status depending on the circumstances. Usage of scent is also a survival instinct; cats living together rub one another to create a familiar colony scent to help them identify whether a cat entering the territory is familiar or an intruder. (Johnson-Bennett, 2004)

Dogs

            To dogs we are our scent, this allows dogs to tell identical twins apart just by scent. Their sense of smell is so strong that they can also figure out if you've had sex, smoked a cigarette, and even the order in which that happened. As discussed above, dogs also partake in urine marking as a primary method of communication. Dogs utilize urine marking to give and investigate information about, for females, sexual readiness and for males, their social confidence  (Horowitz, 2010). Contrary to popular belief that dogs use urine markings for territorial purposes, dogs that were left to their own devices marked, but only 20% of the markings were territorial (Horowitz, 2010). 

By Meryam Popal 

Works Cited

Horowitz, A. (2010). Inside of a dog, what dogs see, smell, and know. Scribner Book Company.

Johnson-Bennett, P. (2004). Cat vs. cat: keeping peace when you have more than one cat. New York, NY: Penguin.

Nevison, C.M., Armstrong, S., Beynon, R.J., Humphries, R.E., & Hurst, J.L. (2003). The Ownership Signature in Mouse Scent Marks Is Involatile. Proceedings: Biological Sciences , Vol. 270.

Shier, D. M., & Randall, J.A. (2007). Use of different signaling modalities to communicate status by dominant and subordinate Heermann's kangaroo rats (Dipodomys heermanni). Springer. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27823476