This Moth Can Smell With Its Wings

The wings of a tobacco hawkmoth can smell. Nobody told them noses go on faces.

Scientists in Germany ran the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. They started with a hunch from earlier work that the wings might carry scent receptors.

Under an electron microscope, some of the wing hairs turned out to be porous, which is typical of scent sensors. Months of analysis then showed the wings carry genes that build odor receptors.

Next came the real test. The team clipped off wings, set them between a pair of electrodes and logged how they reacted to different smells. The wings picked up only two compounds, pyrrolidine and piperidine, both stinky chemicals found in nightshade leaves.

Wings with trimmed edges still responded. Sonja Bisch-Knaden, a study co-author at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, said that suggests smelling hairs are spread across the wing, not just along its rim.

Finally, the team used AI to predict the shapes of 10 candidate odor receptors. Both chemicals slotted snugly into the binding pockets of two of them.

What the wings do with all this is unknown. The scientists have not worked out how the sense affects moth behavior.

The moths lay eggs on nightshade, and nightshade leaves carry both chemicals. The wings may be sniffing out a nursery.

Read the full story at Popular Science, August 9, 2026

Hot Take: Moth wings got a stink-only filter. Humans want the reverse: cookies in, partner's feet out.