police were once called to the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands to search out a pot smoker...

[UglyGreed]

only to find that whoever made the report had been fooled by the scent of maned wolf urine.

The question that kept rattling around my skull this morning was “Why does maned wolf pee smell like marijuana?” This isn’t one of those “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” riddles. Maned wolves – large, South American canids that look like leggy foxes but are neither foxes nor wolves – spray very pungent, distinctive urine that smells akin to hops or cannabis. The aromatic resemblance is so close that police were once called to the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands to search out a pot smoker, only to find that whoever made the report had been fooled by the scent of maned wolf urine.


http://www.wired.com/2011/03/maned-wolf-pee-demystified/

[sarge43]

1. Wouldn't the more important question be

why would police in the Netherlands give a maned wolf's butt about a pot smoker? I thought it was pretty much "Smoke 'em if ya got 'em" over there.

[orleans]

14. that was my first thought too. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Basically, it's overloading of symbols ...

While there are many compounds with recognizably different odors, their number is not infinite, and the number that can be easily produced by organisms is even smaller (still big, admittedly). So it's not surprising that volatile, odoriferous compounds that serve one signalling function in one ecosystem should serve a totally different signalling function in another. Call it the Strong Law of Small Smelly Molecules.

You might well appreciate this related post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12281670

[Hassin Bin Sober]

7. Is this why dogs' paws smell like Fritos corn chips?

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Since the days of the ancients, wise men have pondered this question ...

or, at least, it's been much discussed at DU:
https://www.google.com/search?q=dog%27s+feet+smell+like&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com&gws_rd=ssl

The smell of feet, like other body odors, is mostly due to metabolic by-products excreted by bacteria. Here are some candidates:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=202725

[pinboy3niner]

10. Small Smelly Molecules is now going to be the name of my next rock band

Thankyou!

[surrealAmerican]

3. I'm with sarge on this one.

Why would police in Rotterdam care?

A related question to yours, though: why does ginkgo fruit smell like shit?
There are all kinds of things that smell like things that are in no way related.

[UglyGreed]

4. I just thought it was

lounge material. Yea or nay?

[rurallib]

5. now I can scratch sniffing wolf urine off my bucket list

thanks

[UglyGreed]

11. LMAO you're welcome N/T

[Kali]

6. skunk

same thing at a distance

[UglyGreed]

12. Oh I know of that

stink, spending summers Upstate.

[BlueJazz]

9. Bought an ounce of it once. Didn't affect me much, although I did have a strange urge..

...to blow down a Sus scrofa domesticus house.

[UglyGreed]

13. Oh damn

funny stuff.