Herring Break Wind to Communicate, Study Suggests

// December 8th, 2004 // General // 1,555 views

Thanks to Olivia at Yummy Wakame who picked this beauty up.

According to National Geographic: “Herring may use an unusual form of communicationâ€”flatulenceâ€”to form protective shoals at night without giving away their location to predators, according to a recent study.”

The phenomenon known as Fast Repetitive Tick, makes for the rather mischievous acronym, FRT. But unlike the human version, these FRTs are thought to bring the fish closer together.

“In video pictures we can see the bubbles coming out of the anal duct at the same time,” said Robert Batty, senior research scientist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban. “It sounds very much like someone blowing a high-pitched raspberry.”

And if you still don’t believe a word, listen to this sound clip of a herring farting.

Since we’re on the topic of flatulence, I thought I’d humour everyone with this little sound clip created by yours truly. (What do you get when the guys from mission control had beans for lunch, before the launch of Appolo 13?) Listen here…

*Tip: Right-click to download the sound clips to your machine.

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