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This is the sound of a herring expelling air out its rear. That lets other fish know it’s nearby.

amphibians: A group of animals that includes frogs, salamanders and caecilians. Amphibians have backbones and can breathe through their skin. Unlike reptiles, birds and mammals, unborn or unhatched amphibians do not develop in a special protective sac called an amniotic sac.

anus: (adj. anal) The opening at the end of an animal's digestive system through which solid waste leaves the body.

aquatic: An adjective that refers to water.

Atlantic: One of the world’s five oceans, it is second in size only to the Pacific. It separates Europe and Africa to the east from North and South America to the west.

behavior: The way something (often a person or other organism) conducts itself or acts towards others.

bladder: A flexible bag-like structure for holding liquids. (in biology) The organ that collects urine until it will be excreted.

buoyant: (n. buoyancy) An adjective for something that can float on or rise above some liquid or gas.

cloaca: A body cavity in many types of species, such as amphibians, birds, fish, reptiles and some primitive mammals. This cavity collects materials emptying from the genital, intestinal and urinary canals — and can expel them to the environment through a small external opening.

cohesion: (syn. cohesiveness) The ability of a substance to adhere, or stick, to itself.

colleague: Someone who works with another; a co-worker or team member.

compost: The end product in the breakdown, or decomposition, of leaves, plants, vegetables, manure and other once-living material. Compost is used to enrich garden soil, and earthworms sometimes aid this process.

corpse: The body of a dead human. Also sometimes used to describe the remains of some inanimate object (such as a star).

diaphragm: A thin, flexible wall or partition. (in biology) The muscular wall in mammals that separates the thorax from the abdomen. In breathing, its contractions open up the thorax, inflating the lungs.

digest: (noun: digestion) To break down food into simple compounds that the body can absorb and use for growth. Some sewage-treatment plants harness microbes to digest — or degrade — wastes so that the breakdown products can be recycled for use elsewhere in the environment.

ecologist: A scientist who works in a branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

fart: One of the oldest words in the English language, it refers to flatulence (or flatus) — the release of gas from the end of the digestive tract.

feces: A body's solid waste, made up of undigested food, bacteria and water. The feces of larger animals are sometimes also called dung.

field: An area of study, as in: Her field of research is biology. Also a term to describe a real-world environment in which some research is conducted, such as at sea, in a forest, on a mountaintop or on a city street. It is the opposite of an artificial setting, such as a research laboratory.

flatulence: (adj. flatulent) The release of gas out the anus due to the digestion of food;  colloquially known as farting.

function: The specific role some structure or device plays.

gut: An informal term for the gastrointestinal tract, basically the stomach and intestines. These organs digest — break down — foods and absorb their nutrients for use by the body.

herring: A class of small schooling fish. There are three species. They are important as food for humans and whales.

hydrophone: A microphone that detects sound waves under water.

hypothesize: (n. hypothesis) To propose an explanation for a phenomenon. In science, this hypothesis is an idea that must be rigorously tested before it is accepted or rejected.

mammal: An animal distinguished by possessing hair or fur, the secretion of milk by females for the feeding of their young, and (typically) the bearing of live young. They also are warm-blooded (or endothermic).

manatee: A plant-eating marine mammal that lives, in the western hemisphere, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea

marine mammal: Any of many types of mammals that spend most of its life in the ocean environment. These include whales and dolphins, walruses and sea lions, seals and sea otters, manatees and dugongs — even polar bears.

muscle: A type of tissue used to produce movement by contracting its cells, known as muscle fibers. Muscle is rich in protein, which is why predatory species seek prey containing lots of this tissue.

oxygen: A gas that makes up about 21 percent of Earth's atmosphere. All animals and many microorganisms need oxygen to fuel their growth (and metabolism).

reptile: Vertebrate animals belonging to a group known as Reptilia. Most reptiles have skin that is covered with scales or horny plates. Snakes, turtles, lizards and alligators are all reptiles. Once considered their own separate group, birds now belong to this order. With the exception of modern birds, most modern reptiles are cold-blooded (or ectothermic).

seagrass: The name is a misnomer because these are not grasses, but flowering underwater plants. Like land plants, seagrasses use photosynthesis to power the production of food and the release of oxygen. Some 60 different species can be found around the world. How deeply they can grow tends to depend on how clear the water is, and therefore how far down the sunlight can penetrate.

shark: A type of predatory fish that has survived in one form or another for hundreds of millions of years. Cartilage, not bone, gives its body structure. Like skates and rays, sharks belong to a group known as elasmobranchs. They tend to grow and mature slowly and have few young. Some lay eggs, others give birth to live young.

species: A group of similar organisms capable of producing offspring that can survive and reproduce.

submarine: A term for beneath the oceans. (in transportation) A ship designed to move through the oceans, totally submerged. Such ships — especially those used in research — are also known as submersibles.

wastes: Any materials that are left over from biological or other systems that have no value, so they can be disposed of as trash or recycled for some new use.

zoologist: An expert in the study of animals and their habitats.

Meeting: X. Muoy et al.Looking for the elusive fish farts: Can we monitor Atlantic herring in the Gulf of Maine with passive acoustics? The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 157, April 1, 2025. doi: 10.1121/10.0037258.

Journal: S.D. Merson et al. Variation in the hindgut microbial communities of the Florida manatee, Trichechus manatus latirostris over winter in Crystal River, Florida. FEMS Microbiology Ecology. Vol. 87, March 2024. doi: 10.1111/1574-6941.12248.

Book: N. Caruso and D. Rabaiotti. Does It Fart? The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence. Grand Central Publishing, 2018, 144 pp.

Journal: S. FitzGibbon and C. Franklin. The importance of the cloacal bursae as the primary site of aquatic respiration in the freshwater turtle, Elseya albagula. Australian Zoologist. Vol. 35, October 14, 2011. doi: 10.7882/AZ.2010.016.