Why Do Cats Open Their Mouth When They Smell Something
Camila Farah
Why do cats make that open mouth face.
I brought a rug home from my mother s house awhile ago and my cats all sat around it with their mouths open trying to get all the info they could about my mother s 3 cats. Cats most often make the face after smelling where another cat has sprayed. The jacobsen s organ is located at the roof of the mouth and when a cat smells something interesting either a good smell or a bad smell he she will open the mouth a bit to allow the scent. It enables their jacobsen s organ located in the roof of their mouths to investigate the scent.
A cat s nose is four times more potent than that of a human. This is called the vomeronasal organ or more commonly the jacobson s organ. Why do cats open their mouths when they smell something bad. The cat uses its mouth not nose to suck in air and filter it into the vomeronasal area.
The most common explanation for a cat to hold its mouth open is scent. Cats have an additional scent gland in the roof of the mouth. 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. They open their mouth baring their teeth for maximum exposure so they can access the most scent possible.
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The reason your cat is making that strange face is that during the flehmen response your cat is using their tongue to flick the scent and molecules towards the ducts. 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. But whenever the cat feels that there is an interesting scent present in the atmosphere it tries to suck the air so that it can try to recognise or identify the smell with the help of the vomeronasal organ. Scientists think the sensory information moving through the vomeronasal organ falls somewhere between the.
The jacobsen s organ as it is. I hear that a cat will also do this around an area that might contain cat urine. But the cat is not the only animal that has this incredible organ. For that reason cats open their mouths when they smell something to facilitate the entry of pheromones and other chemical substances.
Cats already have an excellent sense of smell.
Source : pinterest.com