Potent Perfumes The sense of smell in wild animals is much more acute than that of humans.

Insects too rely to a great extent on scents or more precisely pheromones to detect mates.

One of the most amazing examples of this ability belongs to the large and colourful day-flying emperor moth that can sometimes be seen whizzing about in dry heathland or grassy meadows locally.

The female sits in vegetation dispensing pheromones into the breeze and awaits the arrival of a male.

Relying on his large feathery antennae he can detect a prospective mate from as far away as five miles downwind!

So, a female say in Bushy Park will attract a male flying in Richmond Park!

Needing some male stag beetles for forthcoming TV stardom to demonstrate their fighting techniques I sat in the garden on a warm humid June evening and placed a female beetle in a perforated box on the lawn.

Stag beetles fly for a short period at dusk and sure enough,as the light faded I heard the familiar clattering of wings as a small male, having scented the female flew clumsily around the garden and landed near her.

Minutes later a second male, larger than the first buzzed around in ever decreasing circles and homed in on his female target.

So powerful are those tiny molecules of scent that females can be detected by a male from several hundred metres away.

Incredible.