Although a flower's odor can be composed of hundreds of chemicals, a moth uses just a handful to recognize the flower.
It's like identifying a piece of music from hearing only the notes played by a few key instruments, said lead researcher Jeffrey A. Riffell.
[...] The finding provides insight into how the brain processes a specific smell from the sea of odors floating through the air.
— From How Moths Key Into Scent Of A Flower, about research conducted at the University of Arizona, at ScienceDaily.
4 Comments
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This is like a “found” prose poem…
I don't know about the scent of flowers, but moths can identify all the notes coming from my two cashmere sweaters all right.
Yes, it does!
Sigh. Same here.