Do Fish Have Noses Can Fish Even Smell?

When Looking at fish. You have to wonder if fish have gills to breathe and filter water in and out. Then why do fish have noses?

Do fish have noses no they have nares to smell chemicals within the water. Allowing them to recognize mates friends and predators. They can also smell if another is injured food and safe places! 

Do Fish Have Noses?

When looking at your pet fish. You will see a distinct mouth and eyes but do you see a nose? (.)

No, you see two small holes. Usually, these are nostrils otherwise known as nares but we don’t see fully formed noses.

As we can see a fish has holes on each side of its face. It has no protruding bone structure or tissue on its face that describes a nose. Do fish have noses nope they have nares though.

Also, a fish does not breathe via these holes as we do so no fish do not have noses but they can smell via these holes which are nostrils or scientifically known as nares.

How Do Fish Nostrils Work?

Water is flushed in through the nostrils. Or nares as more commonly known in the fish world. In the middle, there’s a sensory pad a group of tightly formed tissue.

These are known as a rosette. These rosettes are made up of around fifty thousand sensors per square millimetre that can sense what’s in the water. These sensors Determine what to do with that chemical reaction.

Importance of Smell For Fish?

Fish, on the whole, can’t see that well, especially in water. So smell is the most important sense they have. They use smells and chemical reactions in the water to help guide them.

As well as smelling they use changes in the water. To find their home general travelling ie finding schooling mates, etc.

How Fish Smell?

Once the water has been flushed through the nostrils/nares. Over the sensory pads, the chemicals within the water are sent to the fish’s brain. While this is happening and the fish is working out what to do with the chemical.

The water is being passed back out of the nostrils/nares. By this time the fish knows exactly what to do with the information within the waters it is amazing really happens that fast.

This process happens in all fish even these Small Fish. If you have ever wondered what the smallest fish are click the link.

What Fish Can Smell?

Fish can smell where home is and other safe surroundings. Where their mates are and more importantly they can smell food and or predators.

Giving them a head start. They can also tell if another fish is in danger or injured. Via changes in chemicals in the water as well as finding a mate to well mate with.

How Far Can Fish Smell?

Fish have a varied range of smells. As said fish are known to have found their way home from tens if not hundreds of miles away.

Salmon can find their way back to where they were born years later when it’s time to go home for breading. This has been said to be thousands of miles.

Of course, we all know about the smelling ability of the shark. Which can detect amino acids or a drop of blood at one part per billion that’s one tiny drop of blood in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

How Good Is A Fishes Smell?

Overall fish can smell better than anything else on Earth. If you include certain eels in that equation put it this way dogs’ sense of smell is renowned.

We use dogs to sniff out everything. We can train them to find all sorts of things from drugs weapons and all manner of other things.

What if I was to tell you that some fish can smell over a thousand times better than a dog? Putting it that way sure does help things to sink in fish can smell really well.

In conclusion, id, like to say fish, can indeed smell. In fact, they can smell better than most living things. Although they have no nose they make up for it with some amazing nostrils/nares.

We need to be careful of carbon dioxides in the water. The over-acidic conditions of some of our waters. mainly at sea but also in rivers and lakes are harming fish’s sensory pads.

making it harder for fish to smell as well as they could before the more acidic the less fish can smell, unfortunately.

Conclusion

Do fish have noses?

So we now know fish don’t have noses. They have what is called nares. These nares are very powerful and allow fish to convert chemicals into smells.

Fish do this by using sensory pads inside the nares. The sensory pads send a message to the fish’s brain. The fish now knows what to do in seconds amazing really.

Fish don’t have noses but they sure can smell thanks for reading hope you enjoyed it.