- That’s another one of nature’s great mysteries resolved.
Everybody farts. Or so you’d think, but some animals actually do not.
For the longest time, sloths were believed to be among the animals that do not toot. Everybody (or at least people who think about sloth farts) believed the sluggish tree dwellers’ incredibly slow metabolism simply didn’t produce enough gas.
Now, that all has changed.
In what must be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of our time, we have finally acquired proof that sloths do, indeed, fart. The first-ever recorded sloth toot was recently caught on video.
It wasn’t published in a research journal or anything, though. Instead, zoologist Lucy Cooke posted the video on Instagram, and you can watch it here.
In the video, Cooke is giving a small two-toed sloth a bath. Suddenly, a stream of bubbles emanates from the sloth’s rear end.
“No room for scientific interpretation there — just good old-fashioned bum gas,” Cooke explained in the video description.
At last, we have hard, irrefutable proof that sloths fart. We can finally sleep peacefully.
Anti-fart Metabolism?
The prevailing theory for the longest time was that sloths just don’t fart. Even Cooke, who observed the sloth butt eruption while bathing one, just recently gave a TED talk where she stated that sloth farts aren’t a thing.
But why wouldn’t they be?
Well, the thinking was that sloths, famous for being slothful, have such a slow rate of metabolism that it doesn’t produce enough gas for it to escape through their butts. Instead, they were believed to absorb all the methane produced in their intestines back into their system and eventually exhale it out.
Although the theory predates the book, it was popularized in the 2017 Does It Fart?: The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence. Written by Dani Rabaiotti and Nick Caruso, both respected scientists, there was really no reason to doubt their claims about sloths not breaking wind.
“I always thought it curious that sloths would ‘reabsorb’ their intestinal gas into the bloodstream, and then breathe it out,” Cooke told LiveScience.
“But the author is a biologist and her well-researched book was backed by academic references, which I also checked.”
The Gassy Reality
Perhaps this theory about sloths not farting was a product of no one ever seeing it happen. According to people deep in sloth lore, however, they certainly do fart.
A lot.
Andrés Sáenz Bräutigam is a wildlife veterinarian who has worked extensively with sloths. He confirms that they are extremely gassy creatures.
“Sloths are big fermenters and some of the biggest methane producers out there,” Bräutigam stated.
“Some studies even claim that they can produce more gas [per pound of body weight] than ruminants like cows,” he added. That’s quite an achievement, considering how gassy cows are.
In fact, sloths are so full of gas that it makes studying them difficult. The bubbles of gas in their guts interfere with everything from X-rays to ultrasounds.
There’s an upside to it, though. If a sloth falls in water, it likely won’t have to worry about drowning because it will float, thanks to all the gas inside it.
Additionally, farting is pretty much the only way sloths could possibly expel their intestinal gases. A sloth’s esophagus is so strong and muscular that it makes it nigh impossible for them to burp or throw up.
Yet, the gas must come out from somewhere, or sloths would be popping up in trees like balloons. So, there’s only one possible orifice it can exit from — therefore, sloths must fart.
You can’t help but wonder how people came to suggest that they don’t in the first place. But what is a sloth toot like?
“Silent but deadly,” answered Bräutigam.
Do All Animals Fart?
Alright, so sloths toot. But are there any animals that don’t?
There is one type of animal that is around 99.9% likely to never fart, and that’s birds. Their digestive systems are extremely efficient, producing very little gas, and they also don’t have the type of gas-producing gut bacteria that many other animals have.
Bats are another candidate for an animal that doesn’t fart. Although they have the gut bacteria for making excess gas, their metabolisms are so fast that they likely won’t have time to get gassy.
Finally, we have frogs. No one has ever observed a frog fart, but that may be due to the fact that their muscles down south aren’t particularly strong. As such, the exit may not be sealed tightly enough to produce a fart, and any excess gas kind of wafts out, like through an open window.
On the flip side, we have gassy things that you would never expect to produce farts. Like black holes.
The pun’s only partially intended.