Olfactory sensitivity for aliphatic aldehydes in squirrel monkeys and pigtail macaques

Using a conditioning paradigm, the olfactory sensitivity of three squirrel monkeys and three pigtail macaques for a homologous series of aliphatic aldehydes ( n-butanal to n-nonanal) was assessed. With only few exceptions, the animals of both species significantly discriminated concentrations below 1 ppm from the odorless solvent, and with n-butanal and n-hexanal individual pigtail macaques even demonstrated thresholds below 1 ppb. The results showed (1). both primate species to have a well-developed olfactory sensitivity for aliphatic aldehydes, (2). pigtail macaques to generally perform better than squirrel monkeys in detecting members of this class of odorants, and (3). no significant correlation between perceptibility in terms of olfactory detection thresholds and carbon chain length of the aliphatic aldehydes in both species tested. These findings lend further support to the growing body of evidence suggesting that between-species comparisons of the number of functional olfactory receptor genes or of neuroanatomical features are poor predictors of olfactory performance. Further, our findings suggest that olfaction may play an important and hitherto underestimated role in the regulation of behavior in the species tested.