• PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Wait are you telling me y’all actually don’t smell ants? They’re a weird and kinda smell like blue cheese. Definitely the smellier of insects.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The only time I’ve smelt ants is when they get crushed. Are you telling me you could smell an ant trail just by walking into a room?

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Are you telling me that if you step on an ant and crush it, you can smell it?! Wtf is going on in this thread??

          • watersnipje@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            11 months ago

            Ladybugs have a weird smell when you handle them. Smells a bit like earwax.
            Also, from the time when I hatched flies as food animals, flies really stink but you don’t normally notice because you don’t smell it when it’s just one. Put 100 flies in a bucket and they STINK.
            No idea what’s going on with the ants though. I’m still not convinced this isn’t a hoax.

        • childOfMagenta@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I mean, I don’t think I can smell them as described, but crushed I can clearly smell the formic acid.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I don’t mean just stepping on an ant. I mean when you were little and climbing a tree or playing on the ground and crushed some ants, smelled your hand to figure out what it was, and it smelled like ants…

    • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      Never in my life has an ant had any smell whatsoever. I was today years old when I realized people could smell ants.

      In fact, I’ll go one step further. I grew up on a farm, tons of bugs. The only bug that I can ever remember smelling are those stupid Asian stink bugs invasive thingies that seem to have proliferated in the northeast US recently. When you squish them, they smell like green apples.

      I can’t think of any other bug that smells at all - even when they are squished.

      • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Ya on the floor, outside smells like bugs a bit too (and dirty and a million other things).

      • scottywh@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I can smell ant hills that are far enough that I can’t see them from an open car window.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Formic acid does really smells like steel tastes. But I’d blame the nickel for the taste, iron tastes differently.