Definition of "flehmen"

flehmen

/ˈfleɪmən/

verb
third-person singular simple present flehmens, present participle flehmening, simple past and past participle flehmened
1. Alternative form of flehm
  Quotations
  One can observe mucus dripping from the nostrils of stallions after they flehmen.
  1994, Lee Boyd, Katherine Albro Houpt, Przewalski's Horse: The History and Biology of an Endangered Species, page 246
noun
countable and uncountable, plural flehmens
1. (especially in the compound "flehmen response") Flaring of the lip in mammals, associated with intensive smelling; flehming.
  Quotations
  During the preliminary phase of courtship between captive animals, Matthew Gaughwin observed flehmen on a number of occasions when the male sniffed intensely at areas of ground where the female had previously urinated and once when the male had sniffed the female's cloacal region.
  2009, Barbara Triggs, Wombats, page 65
  Ladewig and Hart showed that when a male goat displayed flehmen after investigating female urine containing a tracer material, the urine was found throughout the vomeronasal organ.
  2006, Ernst Knobil, Jimmy D. Neill, Knobil and Neill's Physiology of Reproduction, page 2043
  Behaviors recorded included sniffing, flehmen, blowing, avoidance, and penile erections.
  2003, IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group, The Living Elephants : Evolutionary Ecology, Behaviour, and Conservation, page 99