Science is constantly pushing boundaries and moving the world forward, and the database that these volunteers are currently compiling is no exception. It will seek to tell us the answer to that eternal question that has been bugging us for so long: which animals fart?
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The spreadsheet is available online and anyone can contribute to it – at the time of writing it currently has 63 entries and looks like it’s growing all the time. There was actually a fairly comical reason behind its origins too, which began when a family member asked Daniella Rabaiotti, a PhD student at the Zoological Society of London, whether snakes farted. Unsure of the answer, she tweeted David Steen, an ecologist at Auburn University in Alabama, only to find out that indeed, snakes do fart.
After this a whole bunch more scientists got involved with the ‘game’, all tweeting about animals and their flatulence habits along with the hashtag #DoesItFart? University of Alabama PhD candidate Nicholas Caruso decided to then compile all of these responses into a spreadsheet, which now probably acts as the definitive database in the world on animal farts:
I figured the best way to find out if a particular animal farts would be to ask the people who spend the most time with them. Which includes people who study them, or maybe people who keep them at home, or just happened to hear one fart.
Using a Google sheet that anyone can go in and edit seemed like the best way to get the most info as we can and engage as many people as possible.
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Great work dude. Obviously you’re going to have to treat this database with an air of suspicion as anybody can add to it, but considering how many official scientists have been involved with it so far, you would think that you would be able to trust it for the most part. A great start to 2017 if you ask me.
For more animals farting, check out this horse letting out an absolute mammoth fart. Don’t wanna smell that one.