Sense of smell in snakes...

[Tigergenesis]

I understand the role of a snakes tongue and the Jacobsen's organ in smell. But do they smell with their nostrils or are they only used for breathing?

[Reptiles]

lol thats a good one...i thank thay can mybe! smell a little bit as allso as of breathing but mostly thay use it to breath* if thay can smell i thank thay dont relly thank of it as anything..lol rember i sad MYBE not sure lol!

[KarlSnake]

When the snake's mouth is closed, the opening of the trachea fits up into a depression just inside & behind the nostrils & the airflow is pretty much confined to just in & out of the nostrils. The little knobby structure up in there is Jakobson's Organ - basically a patch of smell-sensitive olfactory nerve endings with a short & direct connection to the brain. It has two lobes & along with the forked tongue gives left/right direction information as well as just smell. A lot of snakes rely on their very acute sense of smell to track & identify prey. Mice & rats, for instance, continuously squirt little droplets of urine as they move around. The rats & mice use these urine trails to navigate & snakes (also some lizards) will follow the marked trail in pursuit of the author. BTW, the urine trails are faintly fluorescent under UV - ultraviolet - light & you can see & follow them yourself on a dark night. Scorpions fluoresce a nice yellow or yellow-green & this can be very useful if you are crawling around in the underbrush at night. The little portable "BLB" battery-operated handheld fluorescent lights work great for this.<G>

[Tigergenesis]

Thanks for the info!