https://youtu.be/A4HTHWj4DFs
These are tumultuous times to be an American, as violence has broken out across the country in the wake of the 2016 election, which — speaking of 2016 — was all around a bad year to begin with. So it may seem tasteless to be posting videos of a cat smelling another cat’s fart right now, but counterpoint: one might argue that in times like these, we’ve never needed a video of a cat smelling another cat’s fart more.
Courtesy of America’s Funniest Home Videos, this video called “Cat Smells Another Cat’s Fart” delivers exactly what it promises. One cat farts, the other cat smells Cat #1’s butt and then makes that stink face that cats make when they smell something unpleasant or possibly intriguing. According to the first internet article I found just now on the subject, cats make this face due to a sensory organ called the “Jacobson’s organ” located in the roof of their mouth.
Although the cat sort of looks like she’s smiling or grimacing when she takes a big whiff, the act of opening the mouth and drawing up the air to the Jacobson’s organ is called the flehmen reaction. Essentially, the cat is opening her mouth to suck in the air into the Jacobson’s organ and take a really deep sniff of the odor.
It may look like the cat is offended, but she’s probably really enjoying herself. Cats learn all kinds of information about their surroundings through their sense of smell.
So spoiler alert, the big Shyamalan twist of “Cat Smells Another Cat’s Fart” is that Cat #2 was actually likely enjoying the fart. You came into this thinking it would be just another stupid YouTube cat video, but look at that, we all learned something today. You’re welcome.