Which is the right verb to use? Is smelling as a verb strictly connected with air or what fish do is also called smelling?
I ruled out "detect" as it sounds too formal, or is it?
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4This is a question for biologists or zoologists– Mari-Lou ACommented Jun 27, 2015 at 13:58
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1You got my question wrong. I'm not asking whether they do "sense" chemicals and other stuff in the water or they don't. Because I know they do. What I'm asking is; how do English people call this kind of intelligence. The title might be misleading, I'm sorry for that.– Adam HorvathCommented Jun 27, 2015 at 18:58
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1Then I see nothing wrong with "detect", it is used in the citation posted by Josh61, and also here: A great white shark, for example, would be able to detect a single drop of blood in an Olympic-size pool. Most sharks can detect blood and animal odors from many miles away.– Mari-Lou ACommented Jun 27, 2015 at 19:37
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1Smell is olfactory. Taste is gustatory. The proper word here happens to be "smell" because sharks have olfactory systems. So do most fish. But if you're unsure of that, sense or detect will be the best choice.– anongoodnurseCommented Jun 27, 2015 at 22:50
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1 Answer
Smell not taste is the correct verb because they can sense blood with their nostrils:
A shark's primary sense is a keen sense of smell. It can detect one drop of blood in a million drops of water (25 gallons or 100 liters) and can smell blood 0.25 mile (0.4 km) away. Its paired nostrils are on the underside of its snout. Water continually flows through the nostrils, giving the shark olfactory information.
Unlike humans, shark nostrils have nothing to do with breathing - they are not even connected to the mouth.
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Aha, so tasting is connected to their mouth. It makes sense, thank you! Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 13:29
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3This may be true from a zoology perspective, but, from a language perspective, we could use smell to mean "sense" even if sharks had no nostrils. Fortunately, English is colorful enough to allow us to smell odorless things: You smell a rat, I smell something fishy, she smells something wrong with the data. In other words: "Is smelling as a verb strictly connected with air?" No, it's not – not when it's used figuratively.– J.R.Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 17:43