"Your nose is before your eyes, so trust it first"

When you walk through a park, you probably breathe in the fresh air, noticing how clean and woodsy it is. You might also pick-up the aroma of nearby flowers, if they're in full bloom. As a human, your nose creates an overall scent of the things around you; the smell of a pizza is not the same as tomato sauce, dough, and cheese.

Foxes, however, distinguish scents very specificly. When they walk through the forest, they can smell the pinecones in the branches of a fir tree, the birds sitting in an old willow, and the hidden sprouts of dandelions under foot. They see the world in vivid detail using their nose, just like humans see the world with their eyes. If a fox were offered pizza, he would likely smell each ingredient separately (and he might even like anchovies).


All the better to smell you with..

Canines get their powerful sense of smell from the numerous glands in their nose. These glands are called "olfactory receptors". The black pad you see at the end of a fox snout is only the tip of the actual nose; it occupies the entire muzzle, all the way back to the eyes.

Fact: Foxes have over 200,000,000 scent receptors in their nose!

One of the most obvious reasons for a refined sense of smell is detecting danger. A fox can not only tell where another predator is, but where it has been, and where it might be going. The same is useful for tracking prey; even ever-silent earth worms.

Trees: Natures Phone book

Smells are also an important communication medium. You may have observed how domestic dogs are fond of sniffing and urinating on fire hydrants. That's because such vertical objects make perfect "bulletin boards" of social information. Foxes do the same thing to trees, by reading the posts with their noses, and leaving a note with their own urine.

Another way foxes use the scents in their urine is to mark their territory. Since every fox has a unique odor, it becomes a signature to ward off other foxes from intruding. Unfortunately bad weather, and time, can dilute the scent after a few days, so it must be refreshed frequently.

Environmental conditions are the only thing limiting what a fox can smell. On a windy day, across open fields, strong scents might even travel for miles.

Cross-colored red fox after a meal

A study done by J. David Henry uncovered that foxes use urine as a bookkeeping method. While scavenging, a fox may visit hundreds of spots in search of food, which can take over 5 hours. When a fox does find food, eats it all, but an odor of the food remains, he will mark the spot with urine. This tells other foxes "sorry, already ate it!" so that they can move on. This improves the efficiency of scavenging, so only non-marked food scents are thoroughly investigated.

During mating season, the fox uses a more delicate scent, from a gland on the tail. This fragrance tells other foxes about possible mating opportunities, and can be a good relationship starter for young adults.

Foxes also imprint droppings with glands located between their legs, and secrete markers with powerful glands between their toes. Some people turn away at the oily paw-scents of a fox, likening it to a skunk, but it's all a matter of opinion. Foxes probably think humans smell pretty strange too.