2016 Volume 47 Issue 1 Pages 25-33
Most mammals deposit scent marks to advertise territory ownership. When other individuals encounter these marks, they can recognize species, sex, age, and individuals by sniffing the scents. This recognition is essential for individual and species survival because it enables them to avoid encounters with predators and individuals to which they have previously lost contests and to find mating partners, while avoiding inbreeding. Some compounds, called pheromones, are secreted externally and received by a second individual of the same species, triggering specific reactions, such as innate behavior or changes in developmental and reproductive processes. In addition to visual and voice signals, odorants and pheromones are important for interspecies communication because they persist in the environment long after their senders have moved on. This paper reviews how odorants and pheromones are received in mammalian olfactory systems, considering the main olfactory and vomeronasal systems separately. Then, it explains why olfactory sensitivity and discrimination ability are better in mammals other than humans, such as dogs, and reports on mammalian pheromones for which the chemical structures are identified. Finally, I introduce our research on communication in domestic cats via species-specific odorants with characteristic sulfurous odor.
