this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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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.
I've never heard of insects having a smell, other than like stinkbugs!
Wait are u telling me bugs don’t smell to you?
neither to me, I think. Truth is, I never tried sniffing an ant, I'll sniff them up.
I don’t remember ever smelling a bug either, unless it was a stink bug
I can smell roaches but that's it.
I don't smell stinkbugs, either... Apparently that's also genetic.
But have you smelled ladybugs? Absolutely foul.
I've never actually smelled a stinkbug, now that I think of it. I catch and release by hand for my house without issue. Never noticed a ladybug smell either. Interesting!
The only time I've smelt ants is when they get crushed. Are you telling me you could smell an ant trail just by walking into a room?
Are you telling me that if you step on an ant and crush it, you can smell it?! Wtf is going on in this thread??
Science.
My mind is being blown so much ITT. I don't recall any insect ever having a smell, crushed or otherwise.
Ladybugs have a weird smell when you handle them. Smells a bit like earwax.
Also, from the time when I hatched flies as food animals, flies really stink but you don’t normally notice because you don’t smell it when it’s just one. Put 100 flies in a bucket and they STINK.
No idea what’s going on with the ants though. I’m still not convinced this isn’t a hoax.
You can smell earwax?!
Yeah, it’s a weird bitter smell. Can’t really compare it to anything else. Except for the deterrent that ladybugs spray, I suppose.
I mean, I don't think I can smell them as described, but crushed I can clearly smell the formic acid.
I don't mean just stepping on an ant. I mean when you were little and climbing a tree or playing on the ground and crushed some ants, smelled your hand to figure out what it was, and it smelled like ants...
I smell them outdoors from quite a long distance.
What a shitty superpower
No doubt... It certainly seems useless so far but when the ant wars start you'll all want me on your team.
Never in my life has an ant had any smell whatsoever. I was today years old when I realized people could smell ants.
In fact, I’ll go one step further. I grew up on a farm, tons of bugs. The only bug that I can ever remember smelling are those stupid Asian stink bugs invasive thingies that seem to have proliferated in the northeast US recently. When you squish them, they smell like green apples.
I can’t think of any other bug that smells at all - even when they are squished.
I'm convinced these people are just making it up, I've been alive nearly 40 years and not once heard of this being a thing.
I mean, they probably DO smell - but like I’ve never gotten on my hands and knees and sniffed any bug up close. Maybe these people are more sensitive to smells and can pick them up yards away - or a whole colony?
But ya it’s weird that I’ve never heard of this at all. I had heard of people born with tails or horns, females with beards, color blindness, tiger stripes on skin, the asparagus thing, rain man, hemaphrodites, on and on…
But today I learned ants smell ;)
I can smell them from many many yards away.
There is definitely no need to get close or try to smell them.
So weird! Ants are everywhere. It must get annoying if they stink…
Can you smell them on the floor if you're standing up? How close do you have to be?
I can smell ant hills that are far enough that I can't see them from an open car window.
Ya on the floor, outside smells like bugs a bit too (and dirty and a million other things).
Blue cheese? They smell like blood and iron to me.
Formic acid does really smells like steel tastes. But I'd blame the nickel for the taste, iron tastes differently.