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News From the Field

Microbes give meerkat gangs their signature scents


June 12, 2017

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Body odor. To some it's an embarrassing nuisance. But to meerkats, it's a calling card. Meerkats produce a pungent "paste" that they use to mark their turf. With one whiff they can tell if a scent belongs to a relative, a rival or a potential mate. But the chemical signals in this stinky graffiti don't come from the meerkats themselves; they're made by odor-producing bacteria that thrive in the meerkats' gooey secretions, researchers find.Full Story

Source
Duke University

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