MUNICH -- Mothers can recognize their children by their smell, DPA quoted U.S. researchers as saying on Monday. The study was performed on 34 children and their mothers.

Brothers and sisters can also recognize each other's scents, found the study that was reported in the German medical journal ***Aerztliche Zeitung***.

The scientists gave each child a clean T-shirt to wear in bed three nights running. In 27 of 30 cases, the mothers recognized the smell of their own children. The results between brothers and sisters were similarly convincing.

Yet mothers of adoptive children were less likely to recognize their children's natural scents. Only two out of seven women could identify their adopted children's T-shirts, the study found.