Much has been said about dogs' sense of smell, but this time researchers focused on the olfactory abilities of cats. Scientists wanted to find out whether our purring companions can distinguish their owner’s scent from that of strangers.

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The study, conducted at Tokyo University of Agriculture, examined domestic cats. It has long been known that cats have a highly developed sense of smell and use scents (specifically pheromones) for communication with each other. Previous studies on feline recognition of humans have shown that cats can distinguish between voices, interpret someone’s gaze to find food, and adjust their behavior according to a human’s emotional state, which they recognize through scent. This time, researchers tested whether cats can identify their owner’s scent based on smell samples.

Cats also have a very sophisticated sense of smell

Cats Responded Differently to Their Owner’s Scent

In the study, 30 cats were exposed to different scent samples, including that of their owner, a stranger of the same sex as the owner, and a neutral (unscented) sample. The scent was collected from participants' armpits, between their toes, or from behind their ears, according to the study.

Based on observations, the cats spent significantly more time sniffing the sample from the unknown person than the one from their owner or the empty tube. This suggests that they are able to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar human scents. Previous research has also shown that kittens separated from their mothers sniff unknown females longer than their own mothers.

However, researchers cautioned that this does not necessarily mean cats can identify specific individuals, such as their owners.

The odour stimuli used in this study were only those of known and unknown persons. Behavioural experiments in which cats are presented with multiple known-person odour stimuli would be needed, and we would need to find specific behavioural patterns in cats that appear only in response to the owner's odour

– explained Hidehiko Uchiyama, one of the study’s authors.

Several Factors Must Be Considered

Serenella d’Ingeo, a researcher from the University of Bari who was not involved in this study but has researched feline responses to human scents, also stated that the results show cats react differently to familiar and unfamiliar scents, but no conclusions can be drawn about their motivations.

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“We don't know how the animal felt during the sniffing... We don't know for instance whether the animal was relaxed or tense,” she noted, adding that the presence of the owner’s scent might have increased the cats’ interest in the unfamiliar scent.

They also communicate with each other through scents

It can be said that cats do use their sense of smell to identify people. Interestingly, after sniffing, the cats in the experiment rubbed their faces against the tubes containing the samples, essentially marking them. This also supports the idea that sniffing is part of their exploratory behavior, the researchers concluded, emphasizing that further studies are needed to determine whether cats can identify a specific person based solely on their scent.