Smell may be much more important to the way birds perceive their surroundings than biologists have thought. A study of nine species of bird from seven orders found, in all cases, that the majority of olfactory-receptor genes were probably functional, report Silke Steiger of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, and her co-workers. The only previous estimate — from a draft genomic sequence of the red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) — put that proportion at just 15%.
The total number of working olfactory-receptor genes that an animal has probably indicates how many different scents it can distinguish. Of the species in this sample, the kakapo (Strigops habroptilus, pictured), which forages at night, had the most 'smell' genes, 82% of which probably contribute to this bird's sense of smell.
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Zoology: Bird's-nose view. Nature 454, 370 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454370a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/454370a
