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Writer's picturePaul

A WORK OF FART


This:


—is a Bassian thrush.

It’s native to southern Australia and Tasmania, and let’s face it, is a fairly ordinary, run-of-the-mill songbird by the looks of it. But there’s something really quite extraordinary about the Bassanian thrush, because it has a truly unique means of hunting for its creepy-crawly prey.

It farts at them.

Ornithologists are a little puzzled as to why the Bassian thrush uses its gas problem to its advantage. One theory claims that it uses the blasts of air to clear the lighter leaf litter and debris from the forest floor to reach the insects beneath it. Another claims that the aroma of the bird boffs perhaps attracts the attention of soil-dwelling bugs and larvae, who are consequently drawn to the surface and gobbled up between bouts of back-end blowouts.

But whatever the reason, this behaviour is seemingly all but unique to the Bassian thrush. A bird that just became a thousand times more interesting than we thought it was.


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