Which Zoo Animal Seems to Leave a Cannabis Scent in the Air?

A zoo question, chemistry, and a nose a little too confident.

An animal drawn from a sketch

In some zoos, an unexpected scent wafts near an enclosure. Not popcorn, nor damp hay. Something more unsettling, almost familiar: a cannabis odor. The keeper is by no means a discreet visitor, and certainly not a lawbreaker hiding behind an aviary.

It is the maned wolf, a large South American canid, with a reddish silhouette perched on interminable black legs. The Smithsonian reminds us: it is neither a true wolf nor a fox, but the lone representative of the genus Chrysocyon, a branch apart in the big family of canids.

From a distance, the animal has something unreal, as if drawn too quickly and then stretched by mistake. Its long legs actually help it move through the tall grasses of the Cerrado, the vast Brazilian savanna where sight counts as much as discretion. Its odd appearance is therefore not a whim of nature.

And yet, it is not its silhouette that makes it famous.

This solitary loner communicates mainly through urine, which it deposits as others would leave an address or a warning. For it, visual elegance coexists with a far more brutal olfactory strategy. The contrast is perfect. And visitors’ noses remember it long before their eyes.

A Very Persistent Calling Card

In the maned wolf, olfactory marking serves as a social network, a “private property” sign, and sometimes a mating call. The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute even explains that females ovulate only in the presence of signals tied to the male, probably transmitted by the scent.

Researchers have identified in this urine volatile compounds, notably pyrazines and sulfur-containing hemiterpenoids, capable of producing notes evoking hops, the skunk, and marijuana. A highly effective chemical signature. Unforgettable, above all.

The anecdote became famous. In 2006, at Rotterdam Zoo, the police were called after a report of a suspicious odor. The officers did not stumble upon trafficking, only a maned wolf.