The Week Junior - Science + Nature
THE BIG QUESTION
Hold your breath (and your nose) for a gassy underwater adventure.
Do whales fart and sneeze?
They’re famous for blowing off underwater but have you ever wondered if whales have the same yucky habits as humans? Is that suspicious trail of bubbles really just the air they breathe – or are the world’s largest marine animals big farty pants too? It’s time to find out.
Top trumps
Whales are mammals, like humans, meaning they breathe air; give birth to live young; provide their offspring with milk; and have hair (usually in the form of whiskers around their mouth). They also have digestive processes that help them to break down their food. Unlike humans, however, whales don’t chew their food. Instead, they swallow it whole. Baleen or toothless whales, for example, gulp water and use long, hair-like structures to filter out the krill and fish. Their food is later broken down through four stomach chambers.
As their bodies break this food down (using acid) it produces gases that build up inside their bodies. Where does this gas go? Well, it’s released as farts. So, yes – whales can and do fart. Not only that but because of the animals’ enormous size, their bottom burps are quite a thing to behold. Not everyone is lucky enough to see a whale trump close up but some brave souls have.
You can tell when a humpback whale is letting one off as it releases bubbles from its smellier blowhole near the tail – its bum. Solid waste from a blue whale’s stomach is some of the coolestlooking poo in the animal kingdom. Thanks to their diet of krill, their faeces (a technical term for poo) can be bright, vibrant orange.
The poo helps sustain the ocean habitat, providing food for many living things. It breaks up and spreads through the top layers of water, fertilising the environment just like adding manure fertilises your vegetable patch.
Do whales sneeze?
The short answer is no. Unlike humans, whales need to think about breathing. When they want to take a breath, they need to swim to the surface. If they don’t, they could drown and for this reason whales sleep differently to people. They rest different parts of their brain at a time and take naps before rising to the surface to breathe.
Another important difference between humans and whales is that they can’t breathe through their mouth. Instead, they use their blowhole or nose to breathe. Although you might have experienced food going down the wrong way before – because food or drink has nearly gone down your air passage – this isn’t a problem for whales. Having a built-in snorkel on top of their head makes it much easier for them to breathe, eat and swim all at the same time.
You sneeze automatically and involuntarily (not by choice) if something tickles your nose. If whales get something caught in their noses, however, they can clear it with a big snort through their blowhole. This serves a similar function to a human sneeze but it isn’t technically the same thing.
We’re going to need a bigger tissue
If whales could actually sneeze in the same way as humans, the results would be epic. An adult human’s lungs can hold around six litres of air but a humpback whale’s lungs hold more than 1,000 litres. You can actually see a whale’s breath – it’s a mixture of lung bacteria, hormones (chemicals produced by the body), proteins and lipids (molecules including fats). It’s officially called “whale lung microbiota” but it’s nicknamed “whale snot” and looks like water droplets. Scientists use drones to sample this whale snot to measure the health of wild populations.
So, although whales don’t officially sneeze, the “snot” they produce is valuable to researchers. As for the farts? Well, they may be the biggest bottom burps on Earth.