Cats can sniff out their owners
A new study by Japanese researchers has found that felines spent a lot more time sniffing tubes containing the scent of unknown people compared to tubes containing the odour of their owner.
The researchers suggest that the animals can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar humans based on smell but cannot prove whether they can identify specific individuals.
The idea of sniffing the unknown has been shown before in felines, as research has demonstrated that weaned kittens sniff unfamiliar female moggies for longer compared to their mothers.
Hidehiko Uchiyama, one of the study's authors at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, said: "The odour stimuli used in this study were only those of known and unknown persons.
"Behavioural experiments in which cats are presented with multiple known-person odour stimuli would be needed, and we would need to find specific behavioural patterns in cats that appear only in response to the owner's odour."
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The Advertiser
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