I have a terrible sense of smell. A chronic sinus infection that’s been going for at least 5 years now doesn’t help, I’m sure. I can, however, smell the asparagus thing after I pee after eating some. Apparently I have a very low threshold for detecting that particular odor. I love asparagus, but I don’t eat it often for that reason.
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I don’t have any recollection of smelling ants, but as a kid, I placed an ant on my tongue. It was quite a strange experience. Each little foot gripped into the spongy surface and could not be removed .
So what’s it been like to have an ant on your tongue all these years?
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Oh, it didn’t stand still. Who knows where it is now. 
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I know cockroaches definitely have a stank.
That’s because the little black ants that get into everything obviously smell sour.
If you squish some of them, I can smell them. Formic acid, kinda minty in my mind.
FYI - Terro works fantastic if you have them in the kitchen. Put out some drops where they are coming in, window sill, etc, resist the urge to murder them when 100 of them come to feast, and then wait.
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I grew solanaceous veggies (tomatoes and peppers) in my desert garden. I daily inspected the leaves and removed cutworms, which I then dropped into a nearby anthill. I smelled none of that. The ants accepted my offerings and never invaded my cinderblock shack set on a concrete slab. Nice ants!
I smell asparagus-pee, coffee-pee, and mouthwash-pee. I avoid consuming chocolate-covered ants and thus am unaware of ant-pee scent. Good enough.
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I once made an offhand comment at work that something smelled like ladybugs. I was roundly mocked by everyone around the table, save for the social worker who shared that he too knows the ladybug scent. I just assumed everyone could smell ants though.
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I’m the scientist they interviewed for this article (and a regular Boing Boing reader).
A few years back, I actually did the study to show that Argentine ants, Odorous House ants, and their relatives smell like blue cheese. You can see the research here without a paywall:
As for the ants that come with Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm, they’re a type of harvester ant in the genus Pogonomyrmex that does not produce formic acid. If you smell something from them, it’s related to decay in the colony or maybe an odor associated with their alarm pheromone or other volatile communication compounds.
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You can’t fool me. You’re a bunch of formicators
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I assumed that people saying ants smell would be smelling the pherenomes they use to communicate, not the acid they keep in their butts… dunno tho
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Convallaria majalis? (AKA Lily of the Valley)
(You’ve got kids? Yeah, you very likely can smell Convallaria…)
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Don’t remind me.
(spoilered for body horror)
My mum had a flying ant go up her nose years ago. She got a huge blister on her face from all the biting and has had health problems ever since. Thankfully they are minor, but we are still talking about more doctors visits than on average for her age. Apparently the biting didn’t hurt because the ant was effectively anaesthetizing her.
Is this a good time to say “Save the NHS”?
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It is never NOT a good time to say “Save the NHS”. It is a scandal that thanks to decades of Tory fuckwittery we still have to say it at all. When will they get it?
(Spoiler: never - they’re Tories: “organised spivvery”.)
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I’m missing that excellent NHS skit starring David Walliams (not sure if it’s Little Britain) constantly asking the hospital administrators, “Where’s the money? Where do you keep the money?”
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I didnt know asparagus can urinate!
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Well I mean, they ARE a lot larger than ants! An asparagus that hasn’t taken a leak in a while, it can release for minutes…
What’s the science of why some people smell like ants?
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