When animals die, their corpses exude a particular 'stench of death' which repels their living relatives, scientists from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, have discovered. Corpses of animals as distantly related as insects and crustaceans all produce the same stench, caused by a blend of simple fatty acids.
The smell helps living animals avoid others that have succumbed to disease or places where predators lurk. This 'death recognition system' likely evolved over 400 million years ago.
1 comment(s):
I work in the body prep area of a funeral home. We call that stench "the smell of job security."
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