Timon the Meerkat may have voices (Austin Gray), but Pumba the Warthog is definitely sexier. Androstenone is a sex pheromone, which is a chemical secreted by a member of a species that will trigger a response from another member of that species. There are many types of pheromones, including but not limited to: aggregation, alarm, territorial, trail, and of course sex pheromones.
Androstenone is one of the many sex pheromones, and it has a musk-like odor. It was the first mammalian sex pheromone ever discovered. Sex pheromones are used by many species, including sea urchins, butterflies, and even humans. Androstenone is found in small quantities in human sweat and urine. Now imagine this small quantity that humans sometimes use to sexually excite the other sex, and multiply it a hundredfold. That's how much androstenone is found in boar saliva. Boars (male warthogs and other wild pigs) secrete this pheromone and sows (females) that are "in heat", or oestrus sows, that smell this pheromone will assume the mating stance.
DuPont, a chemical company, sells "Boarmate" to farmers, which contains androstenone. Farmers will apply this to their stys in order to time their artificial insemination. Androstenone is even commercially produced for humans as a "full-strength pheromone to attract women fast!", although its effectiveness has been disputed. With all this put into perspective, Pumba is surely one of the sexiest animals out there!
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteCan you find where they sell this for people? Do they sell it online? It's not like I want it or anything, I think its just interesting that this can be used for humans. I wonder how it will make females react. I also wonder what scent they would smell on males?
Posted by Whitney Huynh
This is in fact a topic very important to the farming industry in general. The use of boar pheromone is used not just for artificial insemination, but also for determining which sows are sexually receptive. Usually, though, a whole boar is used, not just its scent. It's a process used for many farm animals. A male is walked past the female's enclosure, and her response is noted. The responses vary with species, of course, but the process is generally the same.
ReplyDeletePosted by Jacob Lane
As we discussed in class today, this form of chemical communication is obviously very vital to the warthog's reproductive success. Although, in regards to using it in human mate attraction, I'm skeptical on how well this will work, since we have many more complex preferences in mate selection than just odors. However, I am curious if warthogs have an odor image that is unique to certain individuals? If so, does this also affect their ability to attract a mate?
ReplyDeletePosted by Sara Corey
This is a great article connecting science to the real world and how science can be applied in various fields. In class we learned how there is variation in the chemical signals left by animals and how it may suggest animal fitness and reading your article made me wonder if there are any other chemical compounds in the boar’s saliva and why is it that boars excrete so much androstenone?
ReplyDeletePosted by James Lin
I wonder what other pheromones are used by warthogs. They could possible mark their territory or use it in aggressive behavior with other males. I would also like to know if there are any other glands that produce pheromones in these animals. It would be interesting to see if any other animals can pick up on this scent and how they react to it. I also would think that they have more pheromones than humans because we have evolved more complex ways to communicate and attract the opposite sex.
ReplyDeletePosted by Noelle Kellicker
I found this article both informative and hilarious! I had no idea pumba was so sexy or that we share pheromones made by boars. I have never heard of androstenone being sold to humans to attract women. I'm curious where they sell it? I'm also curious if this chemical pheromone is found in any close relatives of ours such as the primate, and whether they have similar amounts as us?
ReplyDeletePosted by Nick Gast
This is really cool. I knew that they had pheromones that people could buy to attract the opposite sex, but the fact that it comes from a warthog is very interesting. Subconsciously, our instincts tell us that we like these smells but, in its main form I am sure it would be much different.
ReplyDeletePosted by Jake Lafauce
This is really interesting, I'm surprised that humans would actually consider using boar saliva to attract other people though. Its kind of funny because a lot of perfumes have ingredients that you really wouldn't expect such as fat from sperm whales or beaver musk. Do you know if this hormone is normally mixed in a perfume or sold alone?
ReplyDeletePosted by Janelle Hayes
Ok, I believe it only fitting I comment on this blog post, being the Meerkat blogger. This is information I'm not sure I needed to know, and will probably never forget it. Still, I think this just shows how important different modalities are in different species of animals. Based on the information, it's obviouse chemical modality is much more important in boars than humans. Or maybe boars just need a little more o'dee colognee to get the females going. As for buying it to use on females, should we be expecting an Axe commercial any time soon starring Pumba?
ReplyDeletePosted by Austin Gray
This is incredible. Why would boars need such high concentrations of pheromones? Especially when one considers how sensitive the sense of smell in porcines is. Perhaps the androstenone is also used is competition with other males and territoriality?
ReplyDeleteabove posted by Dave Magrass
ReplyDeleteThat is so fascinating that the Wart Hog has such high elevated levels of pheromones. Have you considered why this might be? I wonder what it is about the life style of the wart hog that makes producing such high levels of hormones beneficial. I would think that this would be very costly.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder if you know of any studies where they use pheromones such as this on humans.
Posted By Caroline Adams
Wart hogs may have a certain threshold needed to allow the chemical signal to be communicated. It may be sort of like female birds gauging male birds' songs to determine their quality. These are just my personal speculations however; the actual mechanism behind why boars have such a high concentration of androstenone is unknown. Humans have an innate gauge of the quality of the opposite sex through our sense of smell, though this is somewhat masked by our ability to give false signals in the form of colognes and perfumes.
ReplyDeleteResponse posted by Michael Shi