Why Did Sméagol's Nose Shrink?
I've often wondered what caused Sméagol's nose to shrink to such a small size. I wondered, what part of his evolution would cause that? What purpose does his having a smaller nose serve?
I originally thought, "shouldn't his nose be BIGGER if it's based on his being in the darkness of a cave and needing to have a better sense of smell?"
But when I thought more about it, I realized his having a bigger nose would actually make it HARDER to smell. The scents would have to travel further up his nose for processing.
So his nose being SMALLER rather than BIGGER actually makes more sense. Scents will be processed the second he sniffs, because it's growing straight to his scent receptors.
See, this is where the scent receptors are (below). So his nose being smaller means that he is able to process scents quicker.
If you look at his face, too, part of why his nose looks so small is because his eyes are huge. His eyes grew, so naturally his nose looks smaller. And that could contribute to why his nose shrunk -- because his eyes grew and they needed more space. So while his nose is definitely smaller, it looks even smaller than it is just because his eyes are enormous.
But also, if you look, the space between the bottom of his nose to his upper lip grew longer, as well. And it's not that the lower half of his face grew bigger (if anything, it's smaller, especially because his gums meet what with the tooth loss), it's that his nose shrunk, so there's more space there above his upper lip.
And actually, when I'm really taking in a scent, I sometimes drop the lower half of my face to open up the nasal passage and allow more air in. So it makes sense that if he was dropping the lower half of his face to let more air in, and also needed to rely heavily on scent while growing accustomed to life in complete darkness, that his face would transform like this for those specific reasons.
