Why Do Cats Open Their Mouth When They Smell Feet
Camila Farah
![Weird Behaviors Why Do Cats Open Their Mouths After Smelling Something](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/81/b7/a9/81b7a902b4712285c89c11b3d428044b.jpg)
They open their mouths so that they can smell things better.
The cat opens his mouth to allow scent to reach the vomeronasal organ called the jacobsen organ in the roof of his mouth. The resulting facial expression could also have you thinking your cat is chuckling about something. The cat wants additional information from the odor. The flehmen response is just the opposite.
Cats also have an extra sense organ that is unique to felines. Cats most often make the face after smelling where another cat has sprayed. They must just have a thing for. For that reason cats open their mouths when they smell something to facilitate the entry of pheromones and other chemical substances.
As you can see that is certainly not the case. Flehmen response in a stallion. Flehmening can occur with a number of scents but most frequently occurs when the cat smells urine. It s called the flehmen response.
RELATED ARTICLE :
Cats have a scent gland inside of their mouths. The cats slightly raise the upper lip to create a pumping mechanism that allows odors reach the vomeronasal organ. But the cat is not the only animal that has this incredible organ. Scientists think the sensory information moving through the vomeronasal organ falls somewhere between the.It is just inside right behind their front upper teeth. It enables their jacobsen s organ located in the roof of their mouths to investigate the scent. That organ provides more information about certain scents than smelling them through the nasal passages alone. Many male cats will exhibit this behavior when they smell the genitals or urine of a female cat in heat.
It separates tastes from the air allowing a cat to taste whatever it can smell. A lot of cats have the habit of opening their mouths for a long time while they are busy smelling and exploring. It s thought that by using the flehmen response cats can identify certain information like the cat s identity if it s a stranger if the cat is male or female and if he or she has been spayed or neutered. There are plenty of jokes about how cats smell their owner s feet or shoes and then make the surprised face with their mouths open because they simply cannot stand the smell.
Some owners might think that a cat is opening its mouth and making a stinky face because it might be hungry or upset. The jacobsen s organ as it is known can be described as somewhere between smell and taste.
Source : pinterest.com