It really depends on how the virus, parasite, disease…whatever causes a person to become a zombie affects the body. If we know how it affects the body we would be able to know how they function. After all, not all zombies are the same. In The Walking Dead, the zombies use their sense of smell and sound to locate survivors. Glenn is able to provided a distractions by using a car’s alarm to attract them away. But to get out of where they were trapped, Glen and Rick had to cover themselves in zombie gore. The zombies were not able to distinguish that they were survivors because of it.
But when watching the show a person has to sometimes suspend logic. Being able to smell requires working lungs to draw the air in through the nostrils and it also requires working portions of the brain to distinguish what you are smelling from every other scent. The show makes it clear that the only thing functioning in the zombies are parts of their brain. So how are they able to smell if their lungs aren’t working?
And realistically, humans sense of smell is very weak, a lot weaker compare to other animals. It also depends on how strong the scent is. For example: Imagine that you burnt a bag of popcorn in your microwave. The smell of it is very strong and it lingers around for a couple of days. It’s difficult to smell anything else because the scent of burnt popcorn overwhelms it.
Now, replace the smell of burnt popcorn with decaying flesh. How can zombies be able to smell anything else when they’re rotting corpses? If they are able to smell, they have a better chance of smelling survivors if they’ve recently turn into zombies. But over time they’ll decompose more and more, which makes the smell of rot even worst. If anything the survivors would be able to smell a zombie coming from a mile away because of it.
The olfactory cortex is 40 times bigger in dogs than it is in humans and up to 100 million times more sensitive. Not just dogs but many animals are able to smell a lot better than humans, which is why I don’t think zombies will be able to smell blood or fresh meat because if humans can’t smell blood (when someone cuts their palm or when a woman is on her period) then they won’t either.
In short, I don’t think it’s possible for zombies to smell.
Zombie animals on the other hand may be able to smell survivors. But it would most likely be when they are freshly turned into zombies and again, the type of virus that affected them. Eventually, they’ll start to rot too and the smell of decay is really powerful and overwhelming.
 DamnBlackHeart · Thu Jun 13, 2013 @ 06:07pm · 0 Comments |
