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My son is 5 and I'm encouraging him to be curious and ask questions of the world around him. He asked if sharks fart and how does it smell? He feels that it would smell of fish and be disgusting.
He was also asking how anyone would know or be able to check. I don't know the answers and am teaching him how to research.

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    $\begingroup$ Nice first question, welcome! What have you tried to asnwer that question? $\endgroup$
    – aaaaa says reinstate Monica
    Dec 8, 2018 at 23:30
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    $\begingroup$ thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/do-fish-fart $\endgroup$
    – bandybabboon
    Dec 9, 2018 at 4:24
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    $\begingroup$ Thank you very much, had much hilarity explaining the answer he is particularly taken by thr idea of herfing communicating by farting! $\endgroup$
    – Cameron
    Dec 9, 2018 at 12:18
  • $\begingroup$ @Cameron Well done for encouraging your son. If I were you, I'd try to get him to think about how we sense the qualities that constitute a fart and what mechanisms create the fart. A fish may well fart but will we hear it? Will we smell it through the water? Linking back to the creation of the fart (production of gases in the intestinal tract), would we see a new effect like a bubbling in the water? $\endgroup$
    – Jam
    Dec 11, 2018 at 22:53
  • $\begingroup$ I thought that anaerobic decomposition will definitely cause methane in any animal which has an intestine. Why isn't that so for all species? $\endgroup$
    – bandybabboon
    Aug 30, 2022 at 20:14

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Excellent question. Via Southern Fried Science: According to Daniella Rabaiotti, a postdoctoral researcher at the Zoological Society of London, sand tiger sharks are the only shark known to fart.

They gulp in air at the surface, store it, and when at depth let the air our in the form of a fart to alter their buoyancy. Air lets them float instead of sink, so when they want to sink, that's when they release the air. Shark fart source

There is also a book of species known to fart, confirmed by scientists. Book of farting animals on Amazon

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