Why a Bearcat’s Butt Smells Like Popcorn

[n2doc]

[link:http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/why-your-popcorn-smells-like-a-bearcat’s-butt/ |By Brian Switek January 27, 2012





Binturongs smell like popcorn. Or popcorn smells like binturongs. I guess it depends on your perspective. Either way, when I stopped by the enclosure of the large, blue-grey bearcat at the San Diego Zoo last month, the warm, buttery scent was unmistakable. What I heard celebrity zookeeper Jack Hanna say on television for so many years was true — the big viverrid smelled like a movie theater lobby.

Binturongs, a cousin of civets and found in the rainforests of Asia from Nepal to Java, aren’t the only mammals with perplexingly familiar scents. Before I started wondering about butter-scented binturongs, my attention was drawn to the pee of maned wolves. The urine of these stilt-legged canids is redolent of marijuana. The reason why has to do with organic compounds called pyrazines which are often used for communication in both plants and animals — in milkweed and maned wolves alike, pyrazines create long-lasting, smelly “Get lost!” signals. After I caught a whiff of the captive binturongs, I wondered if something similar might be behind their unique odor.

Finding a precise answer has been difficult. Everyone knows that binturongs smell buttery, but the relatively small literature on their scent primarily deals with behavior rather than chemistry. While not the first to identify where the scent emanated from, in 1945 zoologist H. Elizabeth Story described the binturong’s anal glands as the major odor-producing centers in the almost-euphemistically-titled “The External Genitalia and Perfume Gland in Arctictis binturong.” (Names can make all the difference. The reaction to “anal glad” is “EWWW!”, while “perfume gland” sounds fairly pleasant, as if the animal exuded a scent concocted by Calvin Klein.)

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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/why-your-popcorn-smells-like-a-bearcat’s-butt/

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[tridim]

1. Dog paws smell like popcorn too.

Try it, you'll be shocked.

[Javaman]

8. My dogs paws smell like tortilla chips. nt

[tridim]

9. Ok, I'll amend that to include several varieties of corn-based snacks.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. The nose and paws of our chocolate labs smell more like Fritos!

[CrispyQ]

3. Cute critter. --nt

[MADem]

4. We know it's down to the glands, but we don't really learn why...

Fascinating article, though--learn something new every day!

Sadly, though, I’m not any closer to understanding why binturongs smell like popcorn in the first place. Is the smell created by a chemical compound, or something else? I don’t know. Hopefully someone with the means and know-how will be able to sniff out the cause. Just remember, should you catch a waft of popcorn at the zoo, you may be catching a hint of binturong on the air.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Perhaps this compound ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6-Acetyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydropyridine

[MADem]

12. I'd sign off on that reason! nt

[unblock]

5. i can't TELL you how much of my days have been spent pondering this very question!

ok, if i sit down and think about it, figuring how far back i've been wondering about binturong butt odor, and how many hours per day i've actually spent on the topic, allowing for the fact that workdays are not the same as weekends, and also allowing for holidays -- oohh, and leap years, too, i think i can come up with a pretty close approximation: zero.



notwithstanding, interesting article!


as an aside, my very first job was working for part of the columbus zoo when jack hanna was there. cool guy.

[Warpy]

6. Nice kitty

but I don't think I'd like to get close enough to smell its butt.

I'm not going to smell my cat's butt, either. What I get when she's snoozing a foot away from me at night is bad enough.

Most critters on the planet communicate through chemistry. We're one of a handful of exceptions, along with humpback whales, prairie dogs and a few others. If we ever crack the chemistry, maybe we can create a dialogue with our pets.

[MADem]

13. Or world leaders can cut the time of summits down to hours!

A bit of butt sniffing, and they'll know what the other is all about!

[Ron Obvious]

7. This question's been keeping me awake for years n/t

[jberryhill]

11. A DU Classic

[Phoonzang]

14. And people drink coffee made from beans that have passed through a civet

Binturongs and civets are like the bees of the mammal world.

Wow...that was weird, even for me.