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Updated: Sep 9, 2025
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Testing Drosophila Olfaction with a Y-maze Assay
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Falcons can use olfaction to detect food in a test setting
Richard G Sale1, Brett Clark2, Joanne H Cooper3
1Independent researcher, Coberley, UK.
The Journal of Experimental Biology
|August 28, 2025
Abstract:
Falcons, along with many other raptors, have long been considered to have little or no olfactory sense. A controlled experiment in which peregrine falcons, Falco peregrinus peregrinus, and peregrine falcon/gyrfalcon hybrids F. peregrinus×rusticolus used smell to detect their food showed that all the test birds had a sense of smell. The results add to a growing body of evidence that birds, including falcons, do indeed possess and utilise an olfactory sense.
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