It’s not just another funny fact: the urine of bearcats smell like buttery popcorn for a reason, according to scientists who claim to have cracked the mystery behind the mammal’s tasty-smelling pee.
The bearcat – also known as binturong – is a shy and shaggy-haired Southeast Asian animal. And it turned out that it naturally boasts the same chemical compound giving popcorn its yummy aroma.
"The fact that the compound was in every binturong we studied, and at relatively high concentrations, means it could be a signal that says, 'A binturong was here,' and whether it was male or female," said first author Duke University graduate student Lydia Greene.
The team discovered this while routinely examining 33 binturongs situated at nonprofit wildlife sanctuary Carolina Tiger Rescue in North Carolina.
The animals pee with pride, too: they squat and soak their bushy tails and feet as a result, then drag their tails as they move around trees, leaving a trail of scent behind.
The researchers identified 29 compounds in the bearcats' urine, and emerging from all urine samples was 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline or 2-AP, the same compound giving popcorn its tantalizing smell.
Normally forming in popcorn during popping time, 2-AP – also responsible for the scent of cooked rice and toasted bread – is produced when heat sets off reactions occurring between amino acids and sugars in the corn kernels. This cooking method creates new odor and flavor molecules through the chemical reaction dubbed as Maillard reaction.
How then does the binturong make a cooking smell without cooking, and when do humans successfully create the compound through temperatures higher than what most creatures can physiologically achieve?
Could it also be something funny that the animals eat? The researchers studied kibble, which bearcats in captivity consume, but couldn't detect the compound in this food.
They concluded that the compound is created when bearcat pee gets in contact with microorganisms, such as bacteria that reside in the creature's fur or skin, or maybe in its stomach. The scent lasts, too, due to a time-release element that is naturally part of the process.
According to project leader and evolutionary anthropology professor Christine Drea, in much the same mechanism, bacteria produce smelly compounds as they break down sweat in human armpits.
It's deemed a crucial form of communication for solitary ones that barely interact with others but still need to mark their territory and attract mates, the researchers explain.
The findings were published in the journal Naturwissenschaften (The Science of Nature).
