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The other night on Daily Planet (see text and video clips on www.exn.ca)
they talked about a strange popping or scratching sound that herring make
in schools. This seems to be mainly at night. It is caused by release of
gas from the swim bladder, through a duct connecting the bladder to the
anus of the fish. It occurs when the school changes depth in the water.
It sounds a bit like a ticking. When the fish are in large numbers, it
could be a scratching sound, presumably.
They did not say if other fish make this sound. And it is not "intestinal
gas" in the mammalian four-lettered sense of the word!!
John Kabel
London, Ontario
> On Nov 14, 2003, at 5:56 AM, Fred Hebard wrote:
>
> > But why is it that disturbance of water leads to phosphorescence? That
> > would be an interesting, albeit off topic, question to address to the
> > planktonologists (sic) at your wife's research station.
>
> Interesting question indeed. We see much phosphorescence here in Puget
> Sound at night in our plankton rich waters.
>
> I just returned from a wonderful 3 week trip delivering a boat from
> Solomons, Maryland to Fort Pierce, Florida, a 1,000 nautical mile trip,
> mostly done in the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW). I highly recommend
> this trip! We anchored most nights, but occasionally stayed in
> marinas. We proceeded at about 60 nmi per day, at an average of 7
> knots.
>
> Anyway, in Florida one night at a dock in St. Augustine, we HEARD the
> strangest sounds coming through our hull. Out of 20 nights sleeping
> aboard our vessel (a 39' Krogen trawler), only at this one place did we
> hear these strange sounds. I got out of the boat and stood on the dock
> in the evening and listened, and could hear these strange scratching
> sounds, as if there were thousands of little tiny organisms nibbling on
> the docks or hull of the boat. We could not see anything in the water
> that was unusual.
>
> Has anyone ever heard anything like this before on their boats? Does
> anyone have an explanation for this?
>
