Ant smell

I can smell ants, but I dont think they smell that bad. The smell is hardly ever strong enough to be unpleasant. Also, in the region of the world I live in, if you start smelling ants but don't see them anywhere, it means it's gonna rain.

"Genetic quirk", you say?

I have a friend who can smell cockroaches no joke. We always take her restaurant suggestions very seriously.

Wait, is that true? Is someone able to smell ants?

Who the fuck is out here censoring fuck?

Holy shit I thought I was either full of shit or a mutant freak. I'm happy to be a mutant freak.

I feel so validated right now you guys have no idea.

This just tells me ant particles are constantly flying into my nose and mouth and I don't have receptors for them. Gross

It's like me figuring out after 23 years that most people don't sneeze looking at the sun

Ant smell is for communicating with other ants. These are ant smellers not human. The ant-people have been controlling our governments. It's true! Look it up!

Wait are you telling me y’all actually don’t smell ants? They’re a weird and kinda smell like blue cheese. Definitely the smellier of insects.

Mine has always been vision and hearing hard sounds, like doors closing. I can hear all the stupid little sounds like that. And I'm just weirdly good at deciphering shadows at night as long as there's some light.

I'm sure in ancient times this variation of who has good senses for what served a purpose.

Probably similar to that "bitterness" test that a lot of kids got to do in science class where you taste that little strip of paper. To some it's nothing, to others it's very bitter. Genetics has given some the extra "taste", supposedly that might allow people to avoid eating poisonous things containing oxalates or glucosinates. Unfortunately it also means you probably dislike things lie IPA beers or other foods that have bitter compounds that don't bother others.

It's seem to be the same as with cilantro a genetic trait that some people have and other don't

https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/61/2/85/1756864?login=false

Dunno if that a good source as everything i found about that exept for thos page talked about the tiktok post and not science

Tldr : ( i did not read the article in full ) the smell is described as a moldy pina colada

Gotta love how they see a video talking about it, with comments talking about it, and their first step is to post on Facebook asking about it before doing a simple search on their own.

Some people wipe standing up...

Same as asparagus wee. Man, when anyone has eaten asparagus I can smell it before I enter the door to the bathroom. When I have eaten it myself, I’m partly horrified and partly morbidly fascinated. What the fuck is up with only some people being able to smell it.

I can smell wasps nests. The queen odor is very strong to me. But other smells people notice are lost on me.

And I hear everything. Autism I guess.

Formic acid

I can only smell them when I kill them 🤷‍♂️

I can't smell living ants, but there's a common species of ant in the US that smells like rotten coconut when squished.

So, what do ants smell like?

Great, now im gonna accidently inhale some ants as I try to smell them.

By smell, do u mean like ants are walking by n u can smell them, or like you're jamming your face into ant hills n giving it a whiff?

I never noticed this, but I'm not around ants that much as a software engineer. :)

My mother in law can do it, she'll walk into a room, sniff disagreeably and say - "Huele a hormiga."

I agree it's surprising that people can smell ants as a genetic quirk, but it's not typing-what-the-fuck-in-all-caps surprising.

Huh, TIL I can smell ants too.

I used to live in a basement that had regular cycles of ant infestations. I would know they had returned, because the room had started to smell a certain way. Kind of like, damp slightly sweaty skin, but also kind of woody?

Every time I smelt it, I'd always find fresh ant eggs along the wall in the room.

Is it the formic acid? I bet it is.

This makes me wonder all the weird shit we can't detect just because of our genes. Like I read about this one women who could smell dementia. And to think birds can see UV light and its theorized they can see the fucking earth's magnetic field which is how they can tell which why is north and south.

Which ants? All ants?

See, My Hero Academia is real. It's just that our quirks suck. Is not having allergies a quirk. Cause that's the best I've got. That or my weak sense of smell. Comes in handy when cleaning disgusting stuff.

I can for sure smell them but only close up, not from feet away so I’m not sure what that means for me in terms of this gene. They have a very odd musty smell which is also detectable on anything they’ve walked on recently. It’s not a very pleasant odor.

As far as I know it’s all ants, not just a particular type.

WHO RUNS AROUND SNIFFING ON ANTS?!

I swear if I get close enough I can hear ants. Am I crazy or is this a thing? (It’s like a high pitched buzzing or humming, like an electrical hum.)

I used to be able to smell spiders when I was a kid. The spider web, to be exact. It has a quite specific but not unpleasant smell to it.

Some of my family can smell spiders

My weird "paranormal" quirk is knowing when someone is sick by smell. My nose is usually blocked up and I can barely smell flowers but for some reason I can just tell when someone is incubating some sickness that will make them bedridden the next day.

No idea how it works. I just smell "sick" - it's kind of this warm earthy ground smell. I can even smell it on myself sometimes and I'll know I need to take a day off tomorrow. My theory is I can smell something off in the skin temperature.

This thread makes me glad Im bad with regular smells, let alone ant pheromones and shit like that. Downside is I cant tune out sounds, I always hear everything full blast

I can only smell them if there's a number of them, but 'cleaning solution' like one said works for the scent. I also have the 'cilantro tastes like soap' gene, so maybe they're connected.

I have a very powerful sense of smell.

I started smelling them after I had Covid XD

Yes my queen

It's a very unique smell and hard to explain, but nothing on earth smells similar.

But... How do you even know you can smell ants? Why did you try it? Or can you smell them from meters away?

i want to know how many things people had to snarf before realizing it was a tiny bug that they are smelling. how many ants were lost in noses over the years from people testing the theory?

I can only smell them when they're crawling in my nose

Can y'all who can't smell ants taste ants?

I'm pretty sure I'm in the camp of people who can smell ants.

Aunt smell is worse trust me

Can i genetically engineer the capability? Surly crisper could do it?

I somewhat experience this with ants, but I really experience this with ladybugs. Am I the genetic freak for being able to smell ladybugs?

Ants smell terrible. I also thought it was a common sense

So is this only for the American House Ant or also for European Carpenter Ants?

They smell like a strong chemical smell to me, like sulfur

I feel like it might just be the types of ants but idk.

Yeah they have this acidic odor to them.

Sometimes ants can't smell ants either and you get supercolonies

Where I live we have ants that emanate a smell when disturbed; You can actually see their little butts releasing it. Not sure if it's for deterrence or pheromone to their buddies or both. Cause it does stink.

They're anteaters.

Ants have a scent?

Lot of larping in the modern age