Tiffi and Chewy bump into each other

_Elsa_

Tiffi decides to take a walk through the children’s playground. She sees Chewy talking to a father so she heads on over there to say hello.

“Hi Chewy, what’s up?” asks Tiffi. “Why do you have that weird look on your face?”

“Daddy why do birds fly?” asks the little boy pointing to the sky.

“Bird bodies are made to fly,” says Chewy. They have light bones, strong legs, and specially shaped wings. Flying helps them get away from animals that want to eat them. It also helps them travel from cold places to warm places.”

“Where do birds poop?” asks the little boy.

Before anyone can answer he throws out another question ………………

“Do birds fart?” asks the little boy.

Where? What? How did that question come about? Tiffi is trying to hold in her laugh and so is Chewy. The father gets red in his face. He is so embarrassed that his son asked such a question. But he’s only curious and eager to learn! 

Chewy has no clue so he does a Google search to find out.

‘Farts take on many forms across the animal kingdom. For humans and our mammalian relatives, farts are mainly the result of digestion. Sonoran coral snakes have an anus-like hole called a cloaca that can suck in air and then expel it with a popping noise to ward off predators. Yup, that’s a fart.

Zebras fart when startled (we’ve all been there). Cows fart, and also burp around 100 to 200 kilograms of methane a year each, which is a big problem for global warming. 

Octopuses don’t fart gas, but they can expel a jet of water to propel themselves through the ocean (the authors call this a “pseudo-fart”). Parrots don’t fart, but they potentially can mimic the sound of human butt toots. No one really knows if spiders fart; it’s just never been studied.

In many cases, farts help animals survive – Herring, a small saltwater fish most commonly served pickled — use farts to communicate with one another, so that they can stay close in a shoal, even in the dark. Manatees hold on to their farts to remain buoyant in the water, and they are known to fart before diving from the surface. One species of beaded lacewing (they kind of look like a cross between a moth and a dragonfly), when in the larval stage, have farts that contain a chemical that stuns termites. Then the lacewing eats the stunned, farted-upon termite.

For one species of pupfish, farting is a matter of life or death. These small freshwater fish feed on algae in the rivers of South America. These algae produce gas, which inflates the fish intestines and causes the fish to float to the surface, where they’re more vulnerable to being eaten. So they have to fart to sink back to safety.

Dinosaurs roamed and ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years. But did they stink up the place? First, the evidence against: It’s believed that modern-day birds are the evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs. And generally speaking, birds don’t fart; they lack the stomach bacteria that builds up gas in their intestines.’ (Source)

This is just what Tiffi and Chewy wanted to learn about! Tiffi cannot believe that here is another child asking all those why questions. She has to help this father!

Let’s continue – Tiffi offers the father some parenting tips

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Start at the beginning of the main story – Why … But WHY?

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