olfactory system
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- organ system
- Has use
- sense of smell
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- Commons category
- Olfactory system
- topic's main category
- Category:Olfactory system
- facet of
- sense of smell
- different from
- sense of smell
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
The olfactory system is the sensory system used for the sense of smell (olfaction). Olfaction is one of the special senses directly associated with specific organs. Most mammals and reptiles have a main olfactory system and an accessory olfactory system. The main olfactory system detects airborne substances, while the accessory system senses fluid-phase stimuli.
The senses of smell and taste (gustatory system) are often referred to together as the chemosensory system, because they both give the brain information about the chemical composition of objects through a process called transduction.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “olfactory system” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.