Judging by the search engines, the question has created quite a buzz: are whales capable of emitting flatulence, gas… in short, farts? Given the level of enthusiasm for the subject, the Whales Online<\/i> team was determined to answer its readers. Regretfully, we realized that whale flatulence is a neglected topic and has never been the subject of formal scientific research. Never mind, we investigated.<\/p>\nA by-product of digestion <\/b><\/h2>\n
\u201cThe medical definition of flatulence is the emission of a gas produced during digestion and expelled through the anus,\u201d specifies Nicholas Caruso, Virginia Tech researcher and co-author (with Dani Rabaiotti) of the book Does it Fart?<\/i> The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence<\/i>. In order to be able to fart, our friend the whale must first be capable of producing gas during the course of its digestion. Is this the case? Most likely!<\/p>\n
In mammals, intestinal gases (nitrogen, oxygen, methane, sulphur, etc.) are generally produced during the digestive process. In the course of their research, the two authors could only find one mammal that did not emit any flatulence: the sloth. \u201cThe longer the digestive system and the slower the digestion process are, the more time these gases have to form pockets, explains Mr. Caruso. In sloths, digestion is so slow that gas buildup could be fatal, so these animals have developed a mechanism to reabsorb these gases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apart from this very unique case, all mammals would therefore be able to produce digestive gases, but their abilities vary according to their diet and their physiology. \u201cHerbivores, which digest more slowly and have significant activity at the tail end of their digestive track, fart more frequently than carnivores,\u201d suggests the researcher. Cows, which have multi-chambered stomachs<\/span> and ruminate, are the undisputed champions for the quantity of gas emitted.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Judging by the search engines, the question has created quite a buzz: are whales capable of emitting flatulence, gas… in short, farts? Given the level of enthusiasm for the subject, the Whales Online team was determined to answer its readers. Regretfully, we realized that whale flatulence is a neglected topic and has never been the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":39781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[438],"class_list":["post-53475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whale-qa","tag-observation-inusitee-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n