“This is pretty exciting, as it is the first clear demonstration of hummingbirds using their sense of smell alone to make foraging decisions and avoid contact with potentially dangerous insects at a flower or feeder,” said senior author Dr. Erin Wilson Rankin, a researcher in the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Riverside.

— Read more in Hummingbirds Use Sense of Smell to Make Foraging Decisions: Study at Sci News. (You can find the original paper here.)

The team found Piper fruit scent bouquets were complex and diverse. The authors identified and quantified 249 VOCs [volatile organic compounds] in ripe fruit scents across 22 Piper species. Some compounds were found in the fruit scent of most species—like alpha-caryophyllene, which has a spicy scent like cinnamon or cloves. Others, like 2-heptanol, were only found in a few Piper species.

The diet experiments showed that, while the three Carollia fruit bat species varied in their reliance on Piper as a food source, all consumed a lot of a few Piper species, and a little of many others.

— Read more in Scent Is Key to How Bats and Peppers Co-evolved to Survive: New research details how bats and pepper plants in Central America have co-evolved to help each other survive at Futurity.

Lemurs can use their sense of smell to locate fruit hidden more than 50 feet away in the forest—but only when the wind blows the fruit’s aroma toward them, according to a new study.

“This is the first time research has demonstrated that primates can track a distant smell carried by the wind,” says anthropologist and lead study author Elena Cunningham, a clinical associate professor of molecular pathobiology at New York University’s College of Dentistry.

— Read more in Lemurs Smell Fruit From 50 Feet Away via ‘Odor Plumes’ at Futurity.

Male birds may sport flashy feathers to attract females, lionesses prefer lions with thicker manes and colorful male guppies with large spots attract the most females. But bats are active in the dark. How do they attract mates? Mariana Muñoz-Romo, a senior Latin American postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and National Geographic explorer, pioneers research to understand the role of odors in bat mating behavior.

— Read more in Is odor the secret to bats' sex appeal? at Phys.org.