“But receptor proteins are only the beginning of the sensory cascade that converts scents into nerve signals to transmit the sense of smell.” “We knew that tobacco hawkmoth wings would also require specialized odor-sensitive hairs distributed along the edges of their wings to have a true sense of smell. We looked for the essential scent hairs.” And when the researchers trimmed the edges off the wings and retested their sense of smell, they found the wings could still detect the unpleasant amine odors. “This suggests that the moth has special sensory hairs across its wings, not just along the edges, that can smell those odors,” Dr. Bisch-Knaden said.