Senses
With
Shy Wolf
Sanctuary
Senses
Our five senses help us learn about the
world around us, just like senses in
animals
Animals senses help them find food
Protect them from predators
Provide animals with information about
their environment
Help them find shelter and avoid
threats.
Vocabulary
• Sensory Organs - the organs of the body that access those sensory
capabilities and help us become conscious and respond to our
surroundings
• the eyes (for seeing), nose (for smelling), ears (for hearing), tongue (for
tasting), and skin (for touching or feeling).
• Senses - our ability to detect stimuli which are then interpreted and
responded to accordingly
• Response – Our response or reaction to the stimuli
• Behaviors – actions that develop as a result or a response to a stimuli
• What senses would you use to find food if you were dropped off in a
city you had never visited before?
Touch
Touch, is an important form of
communication for humans and many
animals.
• Touch is used to comfort, to
establish dominance, and to
establish bonds.
• Touch is also referred to as tactician
• Our skin is the largest sense organ in
our body.
• The receptors on our skin allow us
to feel texture, pain, temperature,
and pressure.
Touch
Many animals lick and nuzzle
their babies. Other types of
animals groom each other, and cubs or
kittens wrestle with each other.
Touch is an important part of play and
animals use it to teach survival skills like
hunting.
Animals also use touch to establish
social bonds and to scent mark. Some
species, like otters, often rub their
faces together and touch noses.
Did You Know?
Raccoons have poor eye sight and
they wash their food, not to clean
it, but to activate nerve endings
in their paws which help them
identify what they are eating.
Did You Know?
Many marine animals including
lobsters, fish, and seals, use
hydrodynamic reception,
an adaptation that enables them
to track prey by the disturbances
made as they move
through water. Being able to
sense such disturbances is useful
for hunting and to identify
potential threats.
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA-
NC.
Hearing
•Hearing is our ability to
perceive sounds.
•Humans and animals have an
auditory system which helps us
detect vibrations and hear
sounds.
•Ears are auditory organs.
•Vibrations are transmitted
through a medium such as air.
Wolves Hearing and
Howls
• Wolves can hear as far as six
miles away in the forest and ten
miles in the open. Wolves can
hear greater frequencies than
humans. They use howling to
communicate with each other
over large distances and as a
tool when they hunt.
Smell
•The sense of smell is
also called olfaction.
•The nose also helps us
taste things
•Most animals have a
better sense of smell
than humans
• The 300 million
olfactory receptors in a dog's
nose provide canines the
ability to smell things far
better than the 6 million or so
receptors in a human’s nose
• A wolf can smell about 100
times greater than humans.
They use this sense of smell to
hunt and to identify threats in
their environment.
Wolves have a higher level
of scent recognition than
dogs.
On The Trail of A Scent
• By smell alone wolves can locate prey, other pack members
or enemies. Using smell can tell a wolf if other wolves were
in the territory, if they were male or female, and how
recently they visited.
• The wolf has several specialized glands, which put out
a scent that is as individualistic as human fingerprints. This
scent is used by wolves like a personal calling card. They
use these glands to mark boundaries and to mark trails.
These "Scent Stations" are often 100 yards long.
• Panthers use scent marking to keep intruders out of their
territory. The smell of their urine is enough to keep many
types of intruders away.
Smell This...
• Wolves use scents to communicate with
packmates. They scent rub on items in the
environment so that pack mates can identify
where they have been.
• Foxes hold a smelly odor from scent glands.
Foxes wear their smell to distinguish
themselves, like a bad perfume.
• Coyotes use the smell of urine to mark their
territories.
Smell In Canines
(Wolves and Dogs)
• Canine smell is so acute because a dog’s nose splits
the flow of incoming air into separate streams—with
one dedicated solely to smell.
• A dog’s brain is also specially designed to make sense
of the smells.
Think About...
• How do humans use dogs’ incredible sense of smell?
• How would your life change, for better or for worse,
if your nose were as sensitive as a dog’s nose?
• How do dogs experience the world through smell?
Taste
Taste is the sense we use to
detect the taste of food and other
substances.
• Taste is also called gustation,
• Taste buds are the sensory
organs on the tongue’s upper
surface.
• In humans the different parts
of the tongue detect distinct
flavors: front for salty and sweet,
back for bitter, and sides for sour.
Canines also have taste receptors for salty, bitter, sweet,
and acidic. Felines (cats) do not respond to sweetness.
To taste
something we first must
be able to smell it.
Sight
•Sight is our ability to see
and is often referred to as
vision.
•Eyes are the visual sensory
organs of the human body.
•Other animals, birds, and
fish also see through their
eyes.
• A panther's excellent vision
enables it to find and hunt its
prey at night
Sight
At
Shy Wolf Sanctuary
one of our favorite senses is
touch. Touch lets us
show our animals how
much
we love and
care for them.
Use what you
know to fill in
each blank
below.
• At Shy Wolf a raccoon uses his __________ to
examine his food.
• To taste something we first must be able to
__________ it.
• Sometimes wolves rub against things to leave their
__________ for their pack ates to find.
• Foxes are curious and examine things in their
environment using their _____________.
• A panther has excellent vision which helps it find its
prey at _________________.
Show What You Know.
• Choose one of the senses.
• Draw a picture of one the animals at Shy Wolf using
that sense.
• Write a paragraph describing how the animal uses
that sense for survival.
2. Draw a picture.
1. Choose a sense
Hearing
3. Write a paragraph describing how the
animal uses its sense for survival.
EXAMPLE:
Resources
• Sense Organs Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com -
KidsKonnect, January 7, 2019
• Wild Florida Airboats https://blog.wildfloridairboats.com/we-know-
what-the-fox-says-but-you-dont-know-how-bad-he-
smells#:~:text=Like%20skunks%2C%20foxes%20secrete%20a,perfume
%20than%20a%20stink%20bomb
!
• Humane Society, Wildlife Land Trust
http://www.wildlifelandtrust.org/wildlife/
