{"id":571101,"date":"2026-07-27T22:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/571101\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T22:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:22:09","slug":"these-moths-smell-flowers-through-their-wings-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/571101\/","title":{"rendered":"These Moths Smell Flowers Through Their Wings, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smell is a complicated thing for insects. Research has shown<\/a> that, despite limited neural capabilities, insects depend on olfactory cues to locate food, find mates, and avoid predators. Typically, this is done through their antennae, but not always.<\/p>\n

For the tobacco hawkmoth, its sense of smell is found in their wings, according to a study<\/a> published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology. For the latest work, the researchers investigated a previously unexplored function of sensory hairs on the moth\u2019s wings. What they found was that those hairs actively contributed to the moth\u2019s \u201csense\u201d of smell, not just a simple exchange of chemicals. Further analysis revealed that these hairs reacted to the stinky odor of nightshade plants, the moths\u2019 favorite place to lay eggs.<\/p>\n

Sniff and flap <\/p>\n

According to the paper, insect wings carry numerous sensilla, which are tiny receptors shaped either like a small dome or a strand of hair. As sensilla play a key role in insect flight control, research has primarily focused on their mechanical function. Although scientists knew sensilla also had chemical functions, they were more interested in exploring the sensors\u2019 role as \u201ctaste bristles,\u201d as the paper puts it.<\/p>\n

Then in recent years, researchers found<\/a> evidence supporting the hypothesis that the yellow fever mosquito\u2019s wings served as an olfactory organ\u2014a \u201cnose.\u201d On the other hand, other research identified similar genes in the wings of the tobacco hawkmoth. Put together, the findings led the team to wonder if the moths were also sniffing things with their wings.<\/p>\n

Wing science \"TobaccoSensilla on the wing margins of Manduca sexta. \u00a9 Bisch-Knaden et al., 2026 <\/p>\n

For the study, the team \u201cgently\u201d snipped the edges of the moth wings and sprayed a mist of gold over them. When the researchers placed the wings under a microscope, they saw that, between slender hairs typical of insect wings, there were \u201cstubbier, porous\u201d hairs that \u201cmight contribute to the insect\u2019s sense of smell,\u201d according to the statement. Then, they picked out 33 taste and scent receptors, 15 of which were along the wing\u2019s edge, that might be relevant for this sense of smell.<\/p>\n

To test whether the hairs were really smelling anything, the team latched an electrical circuit onto the wing to see which scents the wing would react to, or \u201csmell.\u201d Surprisingly, the wing only reacted to two smells common in nightshade plants. The researchers also tried trimming off the edges of the wings to see if the edge hairs were doing most of the work. As it turned out, the wings still reacted to the nightshade scents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost studies on the wing sensory hairs of butterflies and moths have focused on the sense of touch,\u201d Sonja Bisch-Knaden, a study co-author and a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThis suggests that the moth has special sensory hairs across its wings, not just along the edges, that can smell those odors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smell is a complicated thing for insects. Research has shown that, despite limited neural capabilities, insects depend on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7644,22666,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-571101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-biology","tag-entomology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}