Did you ever see your cat turn up his nose to something smelly, such as a rivals urine mark or a good fish?
This is called the ‘Flehmen response‘. It’s a way for cats to use their vomeronasal organ (also called the Jacobson’s organs) to get a better smell of the object or smells like pheromones. This organ provides the cat extra sensory information to better understand what he is smelling.
In The Mouth
The organ is found between the hard palate of the mouth and the septum of the nose. The Jacobson’s organs link to the hypothalamus in the brains that functions as a soft of switchboard to direct the information to other areas. Tiny ducts connect them to the openings behind the cats teeth in the roof of their mouth.
All cats use this mechanism to analyze pheromones but boy cats show the flehmen sneer most often. That may be because they are particularly attuned to checking out sex-related information even if they’re neutered.
Resource
rustyjo.tripod.com
cats.about.com
Wikipedia.org
Pictures by maxhouse.com.
I never heard of this before, or seen my cat do it. How interesting! Looks like he’s really ticked off, glad to know it means something completely different!
Yep, it does’t mean anything aggressive or bad! He’s just ‘smelling’ something very interesting.
so cute:)
It is the oddest thing when they do it!
It’s so cute when they flehming
It looks goofy.
I do know about this but great info to share with others. I’m sure not many people are aware.
My boyfriend wasn’t aware.
Hihi
Interesting to say the least.
Yes!
I’ve seen my cats do this, like it says, when they smell something they really want to get a good sniff at. It looks kind of like they are panting.
It looks more like they’re ‘grinning’ to me, hihi. It’s like they smell with their mouth.
My cats don’t usually open their mouths that wide, I guess. It just kinda hangs open a little.
Hiro does it wider than Suki does. It looks awfully cute with Hiro, haha!
Well. I figured the “stinky face” (what we call it) was something like that, but I never looked into it in detail. Happy Friday, by the way.
Happy Friday to you too!
When we see that we always say, ‘something sure smells interesting!’ Usually it’s cat pee that gets that reaction, say if we get a strange cat’s pee smell on us from the car tire, ect.
The other animal that has the Jacobsen’s organ (that I’m aware of) is the snake! I know a lot about snakes, too
I want a snake! Some are really pretty.
I never knew that Dianda. I haven’t noticed Barnaby doing it.