# ..Why do fish have nostrils if they can't sniff?



## CowgirlFishKeeper (Jun 4, 2010)

This is perplexing my mind.:lol:


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## Mikaila31 (Dec 18, 2008)

CowgirlFishKeeper said:


> This is perplexing my mind.:lol:


Who said they can't? Fish I beleive at least can smell and taste. In water these two sense probably overlap a bit. My caecilians may not be exactly fish but being blind they have very good smell underwater. If you have ever poured a little of the liquid from thawed bloodworms in the water this makes my rainbowfish really excited.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Byron (Mar 7, 2009)

Yes indeed. Fish have 6 senses, one more than we do. With us they share vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and in addition fish can detect low frequency vibrations and since they make use of this when swimming, it is a true sense.

The sense of smell in fish is termed the olfactory sense. The fish's "nose" does not communicate with the respiratory system as it does in us, but is solely used to dete4ct odours in the water. In many fish it is actually of higher use in finding food that their vision.

I'm not a biologist so I won't try to go into the details as to how this works. But it is fundamentally identical to us. In both cases, the odour has to dissolve into a liquid--in us, mucus in the nasal passages, but for the fish it is already dissolved in the water passing in through the nostril.

Taste is a bit different from us; some might say it is more advanced in fish. They have taste buds not only in the mouth as we do, but also in the skin covering the head, fins, body, barbels, lips and in anabantids (gourami, etc) at the tips of those filamentous ventral fins. Manhy catfish have taste buds on their flanks. All this means fish can "taste" food before it even enters their mouth. A combo of this plus the "smell" may be what Mikaila's rainbowfish detect.

I got the above from the book _Advanced Aquarist Guide_ written by Feroze Ghadially that I've had for years; it is wonderfully "simple" at explaining such things.

Byron.


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## ocalhoun (May 15, 2011)

CowgirlFishKeeper said:


> This is perplexing my mind.:lol:











I see what you did there.


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## CowgirlFishKeeper (Jun 4, 2010)

LOL. You found me, Ocal. Couldn't really join here with my Frih username, being fish and all.  I was bored, so I wanted to see the various responses on the two boards. Clearly, Frih has the best replies. xD


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