flehmen

flehmen

n. a distinctive posture of nonhuman animals in which the head is raised and lips curled (from German, “to bare the upper teeth”), often accompanied by a snort or deep inhalation of air. Flehmen serves to deliver chemical cues to the vomeronasal system, an accessory olfactory organ that appears specialized to process species-specific olfactory cues. Flehmen is often seen in male ungulates inspecting female urine to determine if the female is in estrus.