What is the flehmen response in horses?
What is the flehmen response in horses?
Flehmen is the term used to describe the behavior in which a horse extends its neck, raises its head, and inhales as it rolls its upper lip back, displaying its front teeth. Expressing this behavior is called flehming or flehmening.
What does it mean when a horse curls his upper lip?
#1 – Flehmen Response The Flehmen response is a biological response to smell. The curling back of the upper lip (and often pulling their head back at the same time) helps activate an organ that allows horses to sense chemicals in the air, particularly pheromones. Horses are not the only animal that does this.
What causes the flehmen response?
Smelling the newborn foal and the amniotic fluids associated with birth often produces the reaction. Immature animals – in young horses, both colts (males) and fillies (females) exhibit flehmen behavior toward other conspecifics with neither sex performing the behavior more than the other.
What is the practical application of the flehmen response?
The flehmen response is essential in identifying reproductive status of a potential mate. Some animals, such as goats, perform this behavior as a response to the smelling of urine, including those from other species.
Why do horses scrunch their nose?
Horses will curl their upper lip and press it to the back of their nose, this is called flehmen. A horse does this when it detects an odor worthy of pressing into a sensitive olfactory discrimination area called the voneronasal organ, which is located in the horses nasal cavity.
What is the meaning of a Flehmen?
Definition of flehmen : a mammalian behavior (as of horses or cats) in which the animal inhales with the mouth open and upper lip curled to facilitate exposure of the vomeronasal organ to a scent or pheromone.
What is the key function of the flehmen behavioral response?
The primary function of the flehmen response is intra-species communication. By transferring air containing pheromones and other scents to the vomeronasal organ (VNO), an olfactory-chemosensory organ located between the roof of the mouth and the palate, animals can gather chemical “messages”.
Why do animals do the flehmen response?
These animals perform the flehmen response to investigate a source of scent of particular interest. When these animals carry out such behavior it seems that they are laughing or smirking. The flehmen response is essential in identifying reproductive status of a potential mate.