Get the answers to the strangest, funniest and most obvious animal questions you always wanted to ask.
Section: family & lifestyle
Smelliest of all time
Smelliest vomit
When threatened or startled, vultures have a revolting defence strategy. They will vomit in the direction of their attacker. Given that a vulture’s diet consists of stinking, rotting meat, it should be no surprise to learn that the smell of this vomit is utterly foul. However if any predator is dumb (or desperate) enough to approach too closely, the high amount of acid in the vomit is strong enough to burn them as well. Meanwhile, feeling lighter after throwing up lunch, the vulture takes off and makes a quick get away.
The vulture
The sloth
Sloths live and sleep in trees and, during the dry season, only come down to poo
once every 5-
Biggest poo storers
The skunk (pictured) is more famous but the zorilla, or striped polecat, is arguably smellier. Related to the weasel and not the skunk family, the zorilla’s pungent anus glands can be smelled half a mile away and, like the skunk, they’re used as a highly effective defensive measure. Despite being small, few animals risk getting close enough to eat either of them.
© flickrfavourites -
© Eric Isselee -
Do all animals fart?
Answer
Smelliest talkers
The herring
Herrings communicate through farting. And they fart all the time, which means they must have a lot to talk about!
© Jacob Botter -
“Do all animals fart?”
The skunk & zorilla
Sweetest smelling bum!
The binturong
The elusive, sweet-
© zanthrax-
Smelliest burper
Smelliest farter
The cow
It may come as a surprise to many of you but cows actually burp far more than they fart. And boy, do they burp. An average cow burps around 600 pints of methane a day, and this is responsible approximately for 4 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
© Velo Steve -
Awesome poo shooters
The caterpilar
Caterpillars can shoot poo with such power that it lands three feet away. One species, the silver spotted skipper caterpillar, can even fire its faeces a colossal five feet (1.5 metres) from its nest. In equivalent terms, that would be like us casually firing our poo straight across a tennis court. Apart from being a great party trick, such ballistic poo power comes in handy against predators such as wasps, who use a caterpillar’s faeces to locate their prey.
© J / F -
Due to their high fibre woody diet, termites, and not cows, are the undisputed fart champions of the world. In fact termites fart so much, that collectively it is estimated they are responsible for 11% of all global methane emissions. That is about twice as much as cows and more than all the cars in the world put together!
The termite
The dung beetle for obvious reasons.
Smelly diet
The great horned owl likes to eat skunks! Fortunately, the owl has almost no sense of smell.
Smellier diet
© Jenny Waterson -
© Frederic Salein -
The bald eagle happily tucks into a pile of stinking, acidic, vulture vomit as part of its regular diet.
Smelliest diet
© MN Lamberson -
© obiwan07 -
KING OF SPEED
Wanna race?
© Vitaliy Gutnichenko
It depends on what you call a fart. If we define farting as ‘releasing gas from the gut’, then all animals with guts fart. This is because as food is digested in the gut, gases are created as the food is broken down and these gases have to be released ie: through farting. Of course, due mainly to diet, some animals fart a lot more than others...
© Velo Steve -
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