Snout

flehmen

A snout is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw. In many animals, the structure is called a muzzle,

olfaction

.

Variation

feeding, drinking, exploration, and social grooming

.

Snouts are found on many mammals in a variety of shapes. Some animals, including ursines and great cats, have box-like snouts, while others, like shrews, have pointed snouts. Pig snouts are flat and cylindrical.

Primates

Great apes have reduced muzzles, with the exception being human beings, whose face does not have protruding jaws nor a snout but merely a human nose.^[2]

Dogs

The muzzle begins at the

scents. The loose flaps of skin on the sides of the upper muzzle that hang to different lengths over the mouth

are called 'flews'.

The muzzle is innervated by one of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, which start in the brain and emerge through the skull to their target organs. Other destinations of these nerves are the eyeballs, teeth and tongue.

The muzzle shape of a

sled dogs and spitz types, have muzzles that somewhat resemble the original wolf

's in size and shape, and others in the less extreme range have shortened it somewhat (mesocephalic) as in many hounds.