# Are fish farts methane?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fish-farts-methane/213382>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 15, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fish-farts-methane/213382 "2003-11-15T04:21:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@Wheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheel)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fish-farts-methane/213382/1 "2003-11-15T04:21:27Z")

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I admit this is somewhat tongue in cheek, but after seeing 2 articles about sea dwellers farting in just a couple months time I had to wonder about it. I read that one way to tell if a planet had life was by the presence of methane in the atmosphere. Apparently the theory was that most of the methane in the air is from ruminant flatulence. But maybe it’s not all the cows’ fault. Maybe the [whale](http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030825/whalegas.html) did it! Of course the whale will blame it on the [herring](http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994343). So how bout it? Is all that methane the cows fault?

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2003, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fish-farts-methane/213382/2 "2003-11-15T06:41:54Z")

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[Facts on Farts](http://www.heptune.com/farts.html)

(Hey, it’s the web page name! Don’t blame the messenger!)

😃