You come back from the supermarket and your cat greets you at the door of your house. What at first seemed like an innocent display of affection ends up turning into an inspection of each and every one of the bags you bring back. When he has finished sniffing them, he is left with his mouth half open, his ears forward and a face of genuine disgust. Has your pet ever done it? But above all, what is the reason for that grimace of displeasure?
The truth is that this funny gesture does not mean that he disapproves of the food you have bought. You are closer if you think you could smell another animal. Cats are beings that embody some behaviors and habits that, no matter how endearing and curious they may seem to us, contain a logical explanation. Specifically, this process capable of modifying their face is called Flehmen's reflex and it is a mechanism by which cats extract information from smells.
The Flehmen reflex is a specialized response of some animals that, like cats, use to smell and identify chemicals that are around them. One of the most obvious signs of this behavior is the curvature of the animal's upper lips. In fact, the term 'Flehmen' means something like 'raised lip' in German, and hence its name.
When exhibiting the Flehmen reflex, cats lift their upper lips to sniff a substance, rather than through their nose. This results in a kind of forced smile, in which the kittens show their teeth and the upper part of their tongue. The reason they do this is because they use the vomeronasal or Jacobson's organ, which is located at the top of the cat's palate, between its mouth and nose.
This organ, which humans also have, serves to detect the pheromones that other cats emit and send the information to the accessory olfactory bulb, which is the one that analyzes the information. If cats open their mouths and stretch their necks, it is to make sure that these chemicals released into the environment reach the vomeronasal organ.
Thanks to the Flehmen reflex, cats are able to extract information about their peers. It is normally used by males to know if a female is in heat. Beyond the sexual and reproductive sphere, cats are capable of identifying whether they are in another cat's territory and even the age and health status of the specimens around them.
Therefore, if your animal opens its mouth after smelling or licking a surface, it does not mean that it dislikes something, but rather that it is intrigued and is trying to find out what it is.
