How sharks smell blood?

@surfer222 (1714)
Indonesia
July 2, 2011 2:08am CST
in many science writing it said that shark can smell a drop of blood from a mile away, is this true? How do scientists conduct this experiment? if there is a shark a mile away from me then i drop a bloody dead fish from point x=0 at t=0, at t=? did the shark start to smell the blood is it t=0.0000001 second or t=1day.... cause it's pointless if you can smell blood a mile away if by the time you get to the point x=0 the wounded fish probably already gone....
2 responses
• Philippines
2 Jul 11
heard about this too, actually I have seen it on the Animal Planet. yeah, sharks can detect a blood from a mile away. That's their true talent and that also makes them a more dangerous ocean predator.
@surfer222 (1714)
• Indonesia
2 Jul 11
On animal planet did they show how fast can they detect blood? i'm really curious about this..
@Galena (9110)
2 Jul 11
I haven't read of how this was worked out, but it was probably done by concentration of blood in sea water, rather than actual distance, to reflect how diluted it would become over distance. just sort of makes more sense. but that's good thinking. I've never wondered how long it takes the scent to travel to them, and how that would reflect on whether there was any point investigating or not/.