Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

All four fur seals were successful in discriminating all pairs of 2-ketones.

Three of the four fur seals were able to successfully discriminate all pairs of 1-alcohols. One of the animals (Sealia) did not manage to discriminate any of the pairs of 1-alcohols .

No correlation between odor discrimination performance and carbon chain length was found.

South African fur seals have a well-developed ability to discriminate between odorants belonging to the classes 2-ketones and 1-alcohols.

As these odorants are present in odors of a wide variety of marine animals that are part of the diet of South African fur seals, it might explain why the fur seals in this study were able to successfully discriminate between most odor pairs.

Further studies should assess discrimination performance for other odor classes both with and without behavioral relevance for the seals to increase knowledge about olfactory performance in these animals and its role in social communication, foraging and reproductive behavior.