Is it the formic acid?
Yeah
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.
Could it just be the reflections of ambient noise you also get when you hold your ear close to any surface? The old “If you hold a seashell to your ear, you can hear the ocean” kind of thing.
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.
Ants definitely produce sound when they walk. And why wouldn’t they?
It smells so weird and strong. I’m surprised not everyone can smell this. I wonder how common this is?
Now I need to know what I’m missing out on… I know the smell of formic acid, and can smell it if andts are really pissed off - but do they just smell?
I usually only smell it after they are agitated. I assume that’s what they meant? But usually when I’m smelling ants they are agitated.
Omg the ants are so smelly
I don’t know. This is the first time in my life I have ever heard about people smelling ants. I have a really good sense of smell normally, but I have never smelled ants. Never heard anybody say they could smell them either. So, I think it might be quite common.
I’m not exactly sure. My sense of smell has been shot since I got covid. It feels so weird. Some smells don’t exist, some are much stronger, some remained the same.
One good example is burning anything while cooking.
I can just feel it though. If I’m itchy while in my kitchen, 9/10 it’s ants (ground floor old apartment)
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.
Exactly, ants literally spray formic acid at anything that threatens them
I smell it either way but it’s stronger when they’re crushed.
That’s true of most animals
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.
Is this like how some people can smell if a dude jorked it that day?
no wonder why people avoid me.
jorked. ok
Well, how do you know it isn’t just the smell of the enviroment? I always smell a distinctive smell around ants in the forest, but I don’t know if that’s actually just the smell of their hill (is it actually called a hill) or of ants.
If you smell a distinct smell around ants, maybe it’s the ants that you’re smelling.
I’m not surprised to learn this, given that there are certain tastes that are generic. The “cilantro tastes like soap” mutation, and the “bitter vegetables are good actually” mutation come to mind.
Specifically in this case, at the very least it includes wild cabbage cultivars: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and I think I’m forgetting one or two. People with one copy of the mutation tend to like such vegetables to some degree or another, well people with two copies of the mutation don’t even taste the bitterness. The taste of bitterness evolved primarily to detect poisonous plants.
Which vegetables are supposed to be bitter?
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Broccoli, Brussels sprouts are the two ones which come to mind.
Never heard of them being called bitter
Congrats, you’re a mutant!
Thanks, I feel two things.
Special
And that this is just bs and someone’s taking the piss.Ok now I know they’re all lieing, someone just claimed that cucumber is bitter!
Only bug I can smell are millipedes.
I’m pretty sure I’ve smelled a dead fly before, but not like Lee Mack.
TIL I’m a mutant. X-men watch out!
My friend really doesn’t like when I shapeshift into an ant because of the smell
Are you sure it happens when you shape shift?
Yeah, She really hates the smell of ants. If I turn into an ant She’d rather leave the room until I turn into something else.
Called evolution. Yes, it’s still ongoing in humans. Btw, this is one of the reasons that smaller populations have less survival chances (the other being inbreeding).
Ants will creep in. You will attempt your triumphant self sufficient middle of nowhere meal of rocks and soil. When your fire fails, Youll rip open your last remaining stash of nutritiuous gruel and stuff a handful in your mouth, and taste that acid.
I can’t smell it but I can feel it. I just get really itchy.
