However, the sense of smell in humans is far less developed, and there has been recent controversy over what, exactly, the odorous house ant smells like. This species belongs to a large group of ants whose members are thought to smell like blue cheese (Forney and Markovetz 1971) [link is direct 3.0 mb .pdf download from elsevier], yet numerous online sources report their odor as “rancid butter,” “cleaning solution,” or, most commonly, “rotten coconuts.”
Specifically, the house hippo ant.
*The actual factual paper was actually literally published in 2015, no cap.
https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/61/2/85/1756864
https://www.livescience.com/why-ants-smell-weird
Specifically, the house
hippoant.*The actual factual paper was actually literally published in 2015, no cap.
Uhh… Wait. I may be able to smell them. Those descriptions are making me realize some things.