The smell of surströmming has been compared to rotting flesh. Due to its pungent smell, surströmming is usually eaten outdoors, and is typically served on tunnbröd, Swedish flatbread, with potatoes, diced onion, cheese, chives, tomatoes, and dill.
The odor from a skunk is in a class by itself; it's so strong, it's almost toxic. The reason skunk odor is so hard to remove is that the spray is sulfur-based and sticks to anything it comes in contact with. The horrible skunk odor can remain on surfaces for weeks if not properly treated.
Lesser Anteater
The Lesser Anteater is regarded as one of the most foul-smelling creatures in the animal kingdom. Their pungent odour is about 4 to 7 times stronger than that of the skunk. It is possible to smell the lesser anteater up to 50 metres away!
The zorrilla is considered the smelliest animal because it gives off a fluid from its anal glands when it must defend itself from danger. The nocturnal animal eats small reptiles and rodents while living in rocky areas. The zorrilla is also know by its Latin name (Iconyx striatus) or Striped Weasel.
Check out Australia Zoo's Binturongs!
Often referred to as bearcats, these fascinating tree-dwellers are in fact not related to bears or cats. They are related to civets and fossas and smell like, wait for it…a freshly made batch of popcorn! Binturongs are elusive and rarely spotted by humans in the wild.
A newly opened can of surströmming has one of the most putrid food smells in the world, even stronger than similarly fermented fish dishes such as the Korean hongeohoe or Japanese kusaya.
The animal kingdom now harbors one fewer mystery. Researchers have ferreted out why the binturong, a threatened Southeast Asian mammal also known as the bearcat, smells like popcorn. The culprit is 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, or 2-AP, the same molecule that gives cooked popcorn its aroma.
Fox urine in particular has a strong “skunky/musky” odour, the intensity of which varies with season and appears to be caused by two sulphur-containing compounds, Δ3-isopentenyl methyl sulfide and 2-phenylthyl methyl sulfide. Foxes have an acute sense of smell, and scent plays a pivotal role in vulpine society.
Take the mustelid family of mammals, which includes minks, weasels, otters and badgers, among others. All mustelids have anal scent glands that can emit foul-smelling secretions, according to Animal Diversity Web(Opens in a new window). Different mustelid species use their secretions for different purposes.
Two percent of people carry an unusual form of a specific gene (ABCC11) that means their armpits never smell. The finding came from new research involving 6,495 women who are enrolled in the Children of the 90s study at the University of Bristol, England, and was published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
One of the most curious symptoms of COVID-19 is loss of smell. It can occur during the illness and linger for weeks, months or years. It can also crop up after the infection goes away. This makes loss of smell a common symptom of long COVID-19.
And according to the results, vanilla is the most pleasing smell around, followed by ethyl butyrate, which smells like peaches. Artin Arshamian, researcher at Karolinska and one of the study's authors, said humans may have similar olfactory preferences because it helped early humans survive.
From a list of ten unique scents, survey respondents from a variety of cultural backgrounds all ranked vanilla the most pleasant, reports Peter Dockrill for Science Alert. Researchers suggest there may be an evolutionary basis for the universal aroma preference, reports Peter Dockrill for Science Alert.
Japan is a smell-focused country, and the Shoyeido Incense Company is especially so. In fact, it is the one place in the world that is known for perfecting incense recipes. It has been around for over 300 years! The original store is the largest, but there are many subsets now all over Japan.
Fox poo has a distinctive musky smell and is a similar shape to dog poo, but with a pointy end.
Just why is fox poo so smelly, though? No poo smells especially floral, of course, but fox poo really takes the crown when it comes to its acrid pungency. Whilst the poo itself has a pretty powerful odour, it's actually the musk-like liquid excreted from the fox's scent glands that cause such a whiff.
Striped Polecat
Like the skunk though they secrete a pungent fluid through their anal glands when they feel the need to defend themselves from dangerous predators. The sprayed fluid smells so bad that polecats have earned the pole position as the smelliest animals on earth.
Male Western Grey Kangaroos give off a strong curry-like smell giving them the nicknames of “stinkers.” noises to communicate with their joey in the pouch. Females are also known to build very strong social and familial bonds that can last a lifetime.
Kakapo = Honey
This flightless nocturnal parrot has a strong odor that, unfortunately, makes it easy for introduced predators to find it. Some say it has a sweet, musky smell like honey.
The binturong, or bearcat, is neither a bear nor a cat, but a shy member of the civet family that lives in the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Binturongs owe their popcorn-like scent to a chemical compound in their urine that also happens to be the major aroma compound in toasted bread and cooked rice.
The rotten Greenland shark meat—which has been fermented and buried in a sand pit for up to five months before being hung to dry for another few months—emits an overwhelming scent of ammonia.
Durian has been described as the most foul-smelling fruit in the world.