For years, scientists thought that lazy people did not frighten. A conviction like any other. According to certain hypotheses, their extremely slow digestion would allow methane produced by their intestines to be absorbed by their blood, and then have expired by the mouth. But a video published on July 15 on Instagram came to prove the opposite, tells us the live science online media.
Broadcast by the British zoologist Lucy Cooke and the veterinarian specializing in lazy Andrés Sáenz Bräutigam, the scene features a lazy from Hoffmann juvenile. “Yes, the lazy people fart. And I may have just attended the very first filmed proof ”, Enthuses the zoologist in description of the video – and not without humor. The rumor which claims that lazy people could not fart was notably popularized in 2017 by the book Does it Fart? The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence (“Does it fart? The ultimate guide of pets in animals”).
Co -written by the biologist Dani Rabaiotti and the researcher Nick Caruso, the work presented the lazy as the only mammal incapable of issuing flatulence, an affirmation today called into question by certain specialists. “I have always found strange that an animal reabsor its intestinal gases to expire them afterwardsconfie Lucy Cooke. But the author is a biologist and her well -documented book was based on academic sources, which I also verified. ”
For Andrés Sáenz Bräutigam, who has been working with lazy people for over ten years in a refuge in Costa Rica, this hypothesis has never held the road. “The lazy are, on the contrary, very gas animals”he explains. According to him, they are among the largest methane fermenters. The veterinarian emphasizes that some studies suggest that lazy people produce, relating to their weight, more methane than cows.
When too much flatulence is problematic
This overflow of gas can sometimes even complicate the study of this species. “If you work with lazy people, you live with their gases, they appear everywhere on radiographs, they interfere with ultrasounds, this can really be problematic”, is sorry Andrés Sáenz Bräutigam. The specialist adds that in reality, lazy people have so much gas in their bodies that they use it to float in water.
In its natural habitat, the lazy is used to eat almost exclusively leaves. Such a diet causes slow and prolonged fermentation in the intestine, helped by bacteria. In captivity, its diet is often enriched, which tends to increase the level of fermentation and therefore gas.
Unlike the ruminants that evacuate their excesses of methane by roaring (and farting), the lazy can neither regurgitate nor produce a rot because of their powerful esophagus. Their only means of evacuation therefore remains the fart. So, to facilitate the process, the trainers sometimes plunge them into a hot bath. “This relaxes them and stimulates the natural evacuation of gases”Explique Andrés Sáenz Bräutigam.
This discovery, as fun as it is, recalls that we still have a lot to learn about these creatures. “This is an example of the way in which even science validated by peers may be mistaken and a reminder that these slow animals are still full of surprises”estime Lucy Cooke.
