40 Fun Facts About The Nose

A popular myth wrongly blames which commander's cannon fire for knocking the nose off the Great Sphinx of Giza?

Napoleon reached Egypt in 1798, but drawings published in 1755 already show the Sphinx without its nose. Chisel marks suggest it was pried off deliberately.

An elephant's trunk is formed from its nose fused with which other part of its face?

The upper lip and nose fuse early in fetal development, creating a limb with no bone and up to 150,000 separate bundles of muscle.

In the inherited condition nicknamed ACHOO syndrome, sufferers sneeze when suddenly exposed to what?

Bright light, often sunshine after stepping out of the dark, sets off the reflex. It is treated as a real hazard for pilots, who need precise control in glare.

Which brand of tissues was first marketed as a cold cream remover rather than for sneezes and sniffles?

Kleenex launched in 1924 as a disposable wipe for cold cream. By the 1930s it was sold as a throwaway handkerchief, and that use took over.

In Carlo Collodi's novel, which birds does the Fairy call in to chisel Pinocchio's overgrown nose down to size?

Woodpeckers are summoned after Pinocchio lies about his gold coins. The story made a growing nose a lasting symbol of lying.

Why does a bout of crying usually leave a person with a runny nose?

Tears drain into it through the nasolacrimal ducts, channels running from the eye into the nasal cavity. The same route is why eye drops can sometimes be tasted.

Which desert animal can close its nostrils to keep out blowing sand?

Camel nostrils can seal against sand, and they also trap water vapour from each outgoing breath so the body can reabsorb it.

Which 16th-century astronomer wore a metal nose after losing part of his own in a sword duel?

Tycho Brahe was 20 when a cousin sliced off the bridge of his nose in a duel fought in the dark. Tests on his exhumed remains in 2012 showed the false one was brass.

Which farm animals were traditionally used in Europe to sniff out truffles buried underground?

Pigs can smell a truffle buried deep in the soil, but they must be distracted with a treat before they eat the find, one reason dogs now compete for the job.

The German word Gesundheit, often said in America after a sneeze, literally means what in English?

Health is what many languages wish a sneezer: Spanish salud and Italian salute carry the same meaning.

Snakes gather scent particles from the air and deliver them to the roof of the mouth using which body part?

Tongue flicks carry scents to the vomeronasal organ, a second smell sensor in the roof of the mouth that snakes use to sense prey.

Insects have no nose, so which paired body parts do they mainly use to detect odours?

Antennae hold most of an insect's smell-sensing nerve cells, with a second set on small feeler-like mouthparts called palps.

What is the medical name for the plastic surgery popularly known as a nose job?

Rhinoplasty changes the shape, size or proportions of the nose, and surgeons also use it to make breathing easier.

What everyday name is given to seasonal allergic rhinitis, the sneezing and runny nose set off by pollen?

Hay fever is not a fever at all, since it never raises body temperature. The name stuck because symptoms peak during haying season.

In which industry is a master creator of new products affectionately known as a nose?

Perfume houses borrow the nickname from French, where the word is nez, in tribute to the creator's finely trained sense of smell.

An aquiline nose, with its prominent curved bridge, is named after the beak of which bird?

Eagle-like is the meaning of the Latin aquilinus, a nod to the bird's hooked beak. The same profile is also called a Roman nose.

Which fish finds its way back from the ocean to its home river largely by smell?

Salmon learn the scent of their home stream as young smolts, just before heading out to sea, then follow that smell back upriver to spawn.

A sudden loss of smell became a widely reported warning sign of which pandemic disease?

COVID-19 turned a lost sense of smell into a headline symptom: a survey of 2 million people found it predicted infection better than a cough or a high temperature.

What is the name of the thin wall that divides the inside of the nose into left and right airways?

The septum is built from both bone and cartilage, and the fleshy strip at its outer end, between the nostrils, is called the columella.

Smelling salts jolt a fainting person awake by releasing which pungent gas?

Ammonia irritates the lining of the nose and lungs, triggering a sharp reflex breath. The salts have been used this way since Roman times.

Which animals does the Belgian charity APOPO train to sniff out buried landmines and detect tuberculosis?

Rats of the southern giant pouched species do the work, and they weigh too little to detonate a pressure-activated mine when they walk over it.

Which flightless bird is the only one with nostrils at the very tip of its long beak?

Kiwi sniff out worms and insects underground without seeing or touching them, a sense of smell that is rare among birds.

The hongi, a traditional greeting in which two people press noses together, belongs to which people?

Māori tradition treats the hongi as a sharing of the breath of life, a custom said to have come directly from the gods.

Edmond Rostand's play about a gifted poet and swordsman with an enormous nose is named after which hero?

Cyrano de Bergerac's big nose is based on reality, as his portrait shows, though stage productions usually exaggerate it.

Doctors use the word rhinotillexomania when which everyday habit becomes a compulsive disorder?

Nose picking that turns compulsive can do real damage: one reported case ended with a hole worn through the wall between the nostrils.

What is the medical term for the inability to smell, sometimes called smell blindness?

Anosmia is more than an inconvenience: people who have it cannot detect gas leaks, smoke or spoiled food.

Which group of viruses is the most frequent cause of the common cold?

Rhinovirus is the most common viral infection in humans, and its name comes from the Greek word for nose.

Which Renaissance artist's nose was permanently flattened by a punch from fellow pupil Pietro Torrigiano?

Michelangelo was 17 when the blow landed, and the crooked nose it left is plain to see in portraits of him.

The power of smells to revive vivid memories is named after which French novelist and his madeleine?

Marcel Proust wrote in Swann's Way of the taste and smell of a madeleine dipped in tea bringing a rush of memories back from the past.

Which Galápagos reptile gets rid of excess sea salt by sneezing it out through its nostrils?

Marine iguana heads often look white with crusted salt, which glands at the nostrils filter out of the blood before each sneeze-like blast.

What is the medical term for a nosebleed, usually caused by a burst blood vessel inside the nostril?

Epistaxis comes from a Greek verb meaning to bleed from the nose. Most cases need no doctor: only about 6% of sufferers seek medical attention.

What is the name of the vertical groove that runs from the base of the nose down to the mouth?

Philtrum comes from the Greek for love charm. In most mammals the groove may carry scents from the wet nose pad to a sensor in the mouth; in humans it is a leftover.

Which Russian author wrote The Nose, a satire in which an official's nose leaves his face and outranks him?

Nikolai Gogol sent the runaway nose around St Petersburg in a state councillor's uniform. In letters he often joked about his own oddly shaped one.

What is the formal medical name for a sneeze, the convulsive burst of air through the nose and mouth?

Sternutation starts when irritants tickle nerve endings in the nasal lining, and the alarm travels along the trigeminal nerve to the brainstem.

The vomer, a thin bone deep inside the nose, takes its name from the Latin word for which tool?

Ploughshare is the cutting blade of a plough, a fair match for the bone's shape. The vomer forms part of the partition that separates the two nostrils.

Which pair of sinuses, sitting below the eyes, are the largest of the four pairs around the nose?

Maxillary sinuses are named for the jawbones that house them. The air-filled spaces are thought to lighten the skull and add resonance to the voice.

Which American scientist shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Richard Axel for explaining how smell works?

Linda Buck's 1991 paper with Axel showed that hundreds of separate genes code for the odour sensors packed into the nose.

Which ancient Indian surgeon, called the father of plastic surgery, described rebuilding noses from flaps of skin?

Sushruta wrote of rebuilding noses with skin from the patient's cheek or forehead, often for criminals who had been punished with amputation.

Which capital's Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek displays a nasothek, a cabinet of noses removed from ancient statues?

Copenhagen's museum took off the marble and plaster noses, 19th-century repairs to Greek and Roman busts, when its restorers turned against such additions.

What is the anatomical name for the nostrils, the pair of openings at the front of the nose?

Nares come in two sets: besides the pair on the face, a second pair of openings lies hidden at the back of the nasal cavity.