Fishy Farts

‘JOHN Prescott’s command of the English language has often been as shaky as Shakin’ Stevens sitting on top of a washing machine.

‘You’re talking out of your mouth, you are’

But accusations that Two Jags talks out of his posterior are, anatomically at least, inaccurate.

However, the same cannot be said of herrings who, the Times reports, use exactly that orifice to communicate.

A team at the University of British Columbia says the fish emit sounds ‘just like a high-pitched raspberry’ from their bottoms.

‘We have a shoal of hundreds of tiny herrings swimming in a perpetual circuit of their tank and we have often noticed little trails of bubbles rising to the surface as they pass by,’ says Mark Steward, curator of the Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary in Oban.

‘If you put your ear flat to the glass, you can sometimes hear exactly the kind of sound the scientists describe.’

Scientists believe the findings, which are published in a journal called Biology Letters, should make it much easier to shut up garrulous herrings – just call Prince Charles.’

Posted: 7th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink