The odorous black house ant is pretty common in the US. The smell is pretty pronounced if you crush them - grad student I was doing field work under randomly shouted “come smell my finger!” and yeah - it’s very much like blue cheese.
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
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An anteater in a human suit
I can smell a single bedbug. That smell is terrifying
I can smell ant death pheromones. It smells like cleaner and artificial sweetener. A very unique smell but very pungent.
Maybe it was a particularly stinky ant
mom, my nuts?
Some comments are calling it a genetic quirk, but I submit to you all that it is the ones that lack the ability that have a deficiency.
Am I also deficient if I lack the ability to taste soap when I eat cilantro?
Yes because it makes you worse at finding and disposing of those damn stink bugs, whose stink smells vaguely like how soapy cilantro tastes because of aldehydes.
please eat all the cilantro so we never have to see it on a dish again
I'm one of the very rare people that have the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, but likes it. I blame the soap flavoured gum I had as a kid here in Canada.
So maybe save a little soaplantro for those that want it ;)
cilantro tastes like soap for you ? no way, is this real ?
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If I touch an ant I can certainly smell it on my finger but I wouldn't be able to detect an ant in the room with me
I can't say I've ever gotten ant on my finger then proceeded to smell my finger.
When I was a kid it was a thing to stick a stick into a nest of ants so they'd piss on it so you could then suck/sniff the stick for a... sensation.
I never did as I didn't want to bother the ants.
Chimp coded
Fuck I have the stupid shitty cilantro gene and there's some dudes with ant hunting genes?
Not fair :(
I can smell ants. I've eaten one before. They taste like iron. Like blood mixed with pepper. Idk why I told you that just now.
Not something I ever wondered, but it's a pretty neat anecdote.
you're welcome to untell me
There's no putting the ink back on the bottle.
Different ants taste different!
I've had ants that taste like fizzy lime...
The one I ate was one of those big black ones. Not the huge ones that wander around by themselves, but the normal colony black ants that are large enough to easily pick up.
They taste awful. Like licking a battery.
That's a great explanation! Yes, that's what they taste like.
Omg, this is peak nerd.
If this is a thing it's def a special subset of ant smellers that would go ant hunting (whatever quantity of ants).
I have the same thing. Maybe not quite that powerful, but as a kid I used to root out ant hills to shove sticks in and be a general terror. I thought it was normal until I started dating a girl and we went on a picnic and pointed them out saying we shouldn't eat there. If I smash one it smells like someone opened a can of gas in the room.
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There was a brief moment, while I was going through SERE training, in the Navy; it was before we were "captured" but long enough that I hadn't eaten in a while. We were in the low mountains of SoCal, dry and hot. Whenever we would stop movement for a moment and take a seat, I could smell when an ant was on me.
I didn't recognize what the smell was at first until I saw an ant, after smelling it. I hooked him on my finger and brought him close to my nose and it was clear, he was the source.
I couldn't describe it very well though, not a common smell to me. Never experienced it since.
Maybe it was the combination of no food or bathing, and heightened stress. My SiL also went through SERE, says she has no idea what I was talking about, and just makes fun of me about it. But she's also the type of person who would lie about it, just to fuck with me.
So who knows.
Gonna starve myself to see if I have the ant smelling superpower
It's a genetic quirk, entirely possible they don't have it and you do. There's definitely a thing with real hunger and increased senses too though. I experienced the same thing in Iraq when we out ran our supply lines and went on severe rationing.
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yeah a small % of folks can smell them.
Last time I was reading through comments from those who could, the common response was "sorta like raisins"
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