Do Animals Have Taste?

Our sense of taste lends pleasure to us. This is the reason, why we enjoy our food. The sense of taste does not only give us pleasure, but protects us. It often checks us from eating things that might eventually harm us.

There is a process of tasting. It is our in-built ability to perceive the impact of molecules. These molecules that are moving stimulate the taste nerves and we identify the message we receive as having a certain taste, only the solution, where the atoms move freely, can be tasted. A piece of glass has no taste. Everything that makes the molecules move about more intensifies the taste. This is the reason why hot things have more taste than cold things.

The taste birds receive the sensation of taste. These are nerves really constructed like buds. They have the ability to pick up certain sensations which we call taste. These taste buds are located in man and the higher animals, on the tongue. The number of taste buds varies greatly depending on the taste needs of the particular species of animal. Man is only a moderate taster. We carry about 3,000 taste buds. A whole, which swallows the entre school of fish without chewing, has few or no taste buds.

A pig is more particular in its tastes than even man. Does it not sound odd? A pig has 5,500 taste buds. A cow has 35,000 taste buds and an antelope has as many as 50,000 taste buds. We know animals can taste. Many of them are more sensitive tasters than man.

The sea animals often have taste buds all over their body. Fish, taste with whale body surface, through and through up to the tail. Flies and butterflies taste with their feet. When the last joint of a butterfly’s touches something sweet, its snout stretches out immediately so it can suck it up.

Snakes and Lizards too us their tongues in tasting. It is not as we do. The tip of the tongue flickers out and picks up particles. It ‘brings them to a special organ in the roof of the mouth which smells or tastes them.