Do fish fart?

Question

Here's a good question of the week: Do fishes fart?

For some strange reason this thought came to mind while I was in my bath. As a physician I know that human flatulence comes from two sources: swallowed air or gasses produced during digestion. Since fish can't swallow air, perhaps their digestion also produces gases. Love to hear the facts from an Ichthyologist.

Answer

We put this to Eleanor Drinkwater, from the University of Cambridge...

Eleanor - I think this is a fantastic question. I absolutely love this question, and I can say categorically that some fish do fart. In fact, a recent study discovered for the first time that herring fish produce farts (fart noises), which they think they use for communication.

Kat - Herrings talk to each other by farting!

Eleanor - Apparently. They discovered that if they put more and more fish into a tank together, the increase in fart noises would increase disproportionately to the number of fish.

Chris - When you say fart noises. So you literally mean as in farting noises?

Eleanor - Well, yes. It's a small jet of air which comes out of the anus.

Chris - Where do they get the air from because, as is pointed out in the question, fish don't breath air and when we swallow air, some of it emerges at the back end and the bugs in our gut metabolise some of it to gas so, where do the fish get theirs?

Eleanor - Different fish are kind of put together differently. In the case of herring fish, they have their swim bladder, which is a little sack of air that helps them with buoyancy around the place under the sea, is attached to their gut. And they can actually gulp air in from the surface and they do produce a little bit of gases themselves, which then go from there into the swim bladder. If the swim bladder gets too full, they want to change depth, they can then spit some of the water back out. So yes, that's where the herring get their farts from.

Comments

Fish farts.

Permalink Submitted by Tim (not verified) on Tue, 29/09/2020 - 22:09

Was interested in this question because I get a whiff of something now and then. My recliner is located near my tank...lol

Farts

Permalink Submitted by Raol Esteban (not verified) on Sun, 19/04/2020 - 15:35

All living organisms give off gas as a bi-product of digestion. Even plants give off gas. There is probably more farting in the oceans and lakes than from land life. Cattle are no worse than other animals of the same size. The gasses serve other purposes in the life cycle; plants need carbon dioxide for them to live. Carbon dioxide and methane are common in all farts - only people uneducated in science think that carbon dioxide is bad for the environment. (That includes many of our politicians and global warming mythologists)

Overlooking basic science

Permalink Submitted by Jimmy Jay (not verified) on Fri, 13/11/2020 - 18:56

Large populations combined with a modern industrial world means humans are adding significantly more CO2 to the atmosphere than ever in history. If you actually know a little science, you know that CO2 acts as an insulator. 1 + 1 = 2. You can argue the extent to which it affects our climate, but you can't argue that there is no effect. To do so, you must first win the Nobel Prize for science when you disprove the insulating effects of CO2 that are well known currently. You sound half educated, work on the other half and don't get your science understanding from anti science political propaganda news networks and their ilk.

Fish Farts

Permalink Submitted by Mikey Macuh (not verified) on Fri, 26/04/2019 - 07:02

So here I am taking a bath and think of a conversation my daughter had with me the other day. The subject of all things with intestinal digestion must assuridly fart. Comfortable soaking think this would include fish. And of course I then, like many of this modern knowledge at our finger tips, Googled my prose. And the funniest part to me is not that I am the only person to think such a thing, but, that I wasn’t the only person the think such a thing whilst in the bath.

Thanks for the question and thanks for the answer.

Permalink Submitted by Shree (not verified) on Mon, 10/12/2018 - 17:11

I just happened to see my big fish farting and had a crazy idea of googling it, and well, here i am enjoyed the scene and enjoyed this conversation. Thanks all.

Fish fart

Permalink Submitted by Pete (not verified) on Sun, 12/08/2018 - 02:40

I heard this from my dad as an answer of “yes”

ie do fish fart? Is the pope a catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods?

Fish Farts

Permalink Submitted by Patrick Pazal (not verified) on Sat, 03/02/2018 - 21:49

I too was one day suddenly and unexpectedly inspired by the idea that fish may fart! This article surprised me, not just for the information, but because "Eleanor Drinkwater" may be construed as a command (poor woman must have had a hard time in school!) and also the name of the site, which I have now bookmarked, but never seen before, "The Naked Scientists?" If you need to apply for a new job, how do you explain that you previously worked at "The Naked Scientists?".

Lots of people do!

Permalink Submitted by chris on Sun, 04/02/2018 - 11:06

We've had a lot of people pass through the doors over the years and so we are on many CVs and we understand from some that the subject of the Naked Scientists comes up at interviews, usually ones in which there is a successful outcome!