i can smell fruit flies and i wish i couldnt
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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STOP FUCKING POSTING CENSORED SHIT
Does everyone agree that ladybugs smell terrible??!
Not all of them do. I always thought of them as "good" and "bad" ladybugs. The bad ones stink. I have a feeling it correlates with lighter color. More orange than red. But this is purely anecdotal 😋
Yes, beetles in general don't smell great to me. They leave a fecal-like scent on my fingers when I hold them (Which I've always assumed is some sort of musk and not actual feces). I can smell ants too, but it's only when they're scared: They seem to release a chemical that smells to me like Windex the moment they realize they're possibly in danger. I didn't know that made me special, but I do know that others might not be able to smell it as I've had conversations about this with people who didn't know wtf I was talking about. I've heard that it might be formic acid? Not sure.
Funny because I don't normally have a very sensitive nose. And I'm not a super-taster, cilantro tastes like cilantro to me (Fresh and herbally).
Yes! I'm not super sensitive to them, but one time in school I had one land on me and curiosity got the better of me. Never again!
Homo Orycteropus.
Are we talking formic acid from crushed ants or just there is an ant around and they can smell it?
Not just crushed ants, I smell it when they're scared and running, but undamaged, as well. Calm ants though, they don't smell to me. I always assumed it was a warning chemical to other ants, or a deterrent for predators with more sensitive sniffers than I.
I smell it either way but it's stronger when they're crushed.
That's true of most animals
That's the most useless censoring of the word "Fuck" I have ever seen 😅
Why did you censor a small mushroom?
That mushroom is average-sized my good sir.
What'cha got there, m8?
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Whatever, keep your ant-smelling superpower, I'm not jealous. At least cilantro doesn't taste like soap to me! :P
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I'm tired of microblog screenshots that self-censor 😕
Also that's cool. I'm pretty sure I cannot smell ants. But it's also possible there are ants everywhere I go, so I can't discern what part of the background smells are the ants.
No smell has ever elevated when I near an ant colony, and I see wild ant colonies all the time. So I'm pretty sure I can't.
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Some people can smell ants. Some people can smell Parkinson's disease.
I don't think I can smell either of those but I can smell B.O.
I never knew about this. Is this the same gene which makes people like/dislike bitter foods?
Years ago at a place I worked at, food manufacturers, the R&D team did a taste workshop. 5 cups of flavours, salt, bitter, water, umami, sweet. The bitter one just tasted of water to me. They called it "bitter blind"
Probably makes you easier to poison. I will keep that in mind.
There’s a couple different chemical compounds that can activate your bitter receptors (caffeine for instance) but there are a few bitter chemicals like Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) or N-Propylthiouracil (PROP) that have been linked to variations in a specific gene (TAS2R38). Where I used to work we used PROP strips you’d just put on your tongue to categorize participants into tasters, non-tasters, and potential super-tasters. If it tasted like nothing, you didn’t have the genetic variant. If it tasted like bitterness, it could either be not that bad or, for example in my experience, it’s really really terrible and takes some effort to remove from the tongue.
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I think I can hear ants. People probably think I’m crazy. Like if you bend down and get your face really close to their trail. It’s like a buzzing sound. Like static on an old TV. Creepy as fuck.
I usually can't but when hiking in fall we came to a big anthill and you could hear the leaves rustling below their little legs.
I was so exited as I had never heard that before.
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