The world’s most dangerous fart - Nick Caruso and Dani Rabaiotti
For most humans, farts
are a welcome relief,
an embarrassing incident, or
an opportunity for a gas-based gag.
But for many other creatures,
farts are no laughing matter.
Deep in the bowels of the animal kingdom,
farts can serve as tools of intimidation,
acts of self-defense, and even
weapons of malodorous murder.
The smelliest parts in the animal kingdom
aren’t lethal,
but they might ruin
your trip to the beach.
Seals and sea lions are well-known for
having truly foul farts due to their diet.
Fish and shellfish are incredibly high
in sulfur.
And during digestion, mammalian
gut bacteria breaks down sulfur
and amino acids containing sulfur
to produce hydrogen disulphide,
a gas with a smell resembling rotten eggs.
Seals and sea lions can’t help
their funky flatulence,
But some animals deploy
their farts strategically.
Both the Eastern hognose snake and
the Sonoran coral snake
use a tactic called cloacal popping.
This involves sucking air
into their cloaca—
a hole used for urinating, defecating
and reproduction—
and then shooting it back out
with a loud pop.
These pops are no more dangerous
than a sea lion’s stench,
but they are effective at scaring
off would-be predators.
Meanwhile, the flatulence of beaded
lacewing larvae are silent and deadly.
Their farts contain a class
of chemical known as allomone
that has evolved specifically
to paralyze termites.
In fact, this allomone is so powerful,
a single fart can immobilize multiple
termites for up to three hours,
or even kill them outright.
Either way, these toxic farts give
beaded lacewing larvae plenty of time
to devour prey
up to three times their size.
For some other animals, however,
holding farts in can be deadly.
The Bolson pupfish is a small freshwater
fish found in northern Mexico.
These fish feed on algae and other
small organisms in the sediment.
But during the hottest days of the summer,
this algae produces a lot of gas.
If a pupfish doesn’t fart this gas out,
it becomes buoyant—
making it easy prey for passing birds.
And it isn't just predators
they have to worry about.
Excessive gas buildup can actually
burst their digestive systems.
Researchers have found groups
of several hundred dead pupfish
that failed to fart
for their lives.
Fortunately for humanity,
animal farts can’t directly harm a human—
outside making us lose our lunch.
But in the right circumstances,
some animal flatulence can create
surprisingly dangerous conditions.
In the fall of 2015, a tripped smoke alarm
forced a plane to make
an emergency landing.
Upon further inspection, officials
found that there was no fire—
just the burps and farts of over 2,000
goats being transported in the cargo bay.
The change in air pressure had caused
them to pass gas en masse.
Thankfully, this story of farting goats
had relatively low costs.
But the most dangerous flatulence
in the world may actually come from
a similarly unassuming mammal:
the humble cow.
There are nearly one billion
cows in the world,
most of them raised specifically
for milk and meat.
Like goats, cows are ruminants,
which means their stomachs
have four chambers,
allowing them to chew, digest
and regurgitate their food multiple times.
This process helps them extract extra
nutrients from their food,
but it also produces a lot of gas.
This is particularly troubling
because one of the gases cows emit
is methane,
a major greenhouse gas that contributes
heavily to global warming.
One kilogram of methane traps dozens
of times more heat in the atmosphere
than one kilogram of carbon dioxide.
And with each cow releasing
up to 100 kilograms of methane every year,
these animals have become
one of the biggest contributors
toward climate change.
So while other animals may have louder,
fouler, or even more toxic farts,
cow flatulence may be the most
dangerous gas ever to pass.
