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Short Stuff: Do Fish Get Thirsty? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short Stuff coming at you
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  Speaker 1: with a question I had never thought of until I
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: was on our old site how Stuff Works, and came
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  Speaker 1: across an article by Nathan Chandler which asked a surprising
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  Speaker 1: question that makes a lot of sense if you think
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  Speaker 1: about it. Do fish which spend their lives in the
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  Speaker 1: water ever get thirsty? It's a great question, and I
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  Speaker 1: immediately thought of possibly one of my favorite, definitely one
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  Speaker 1: of my favorite all time comedies, maybe my favorite, the
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  Speaker 1: movie Arthur. I thought you were gonna say family Ties
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  Speaker 1: movie comedies Arthur. When Arthur says I must think that
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  Speaker 1: fish get awfully tired of eating seafood. That's one that's
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  Speaker 1: not even one of the good lines. I've never seen
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  Speaker 1: that one you're talking about, Arthur. Yeah, with Russell Brand.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Oh god, you know I'm mad, I am right now. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I know you're a big Russell Brand fan. Even though
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  Speaker 1: Hodgeman was in that version, I think he really was.
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  Speaker 1: Um and uh yeah, that's my big connection to it.
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  Speaker 1: That's his claim to fame. So h No, I haven't
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  Speaker 1: seen Arthur, but I will just to keep this one going.
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  Speaker 1: How about that? Wait, you haven't seen the original either?
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  Speaker 1: For real, I've never seen any Arthur dude. It's one
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  Speaker 1: of the best comedies of all time. Uh. Doesn't it
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: have that song between the Moon and New York City? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: One of the great movie theme songs of all time.
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  Speaker 1: It is a good theme song. I know it's crazy,
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  Speaker 1: but it's true. Um. Nice. Uh. So let's keep going though,
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  Speaker 1: because we need to get back to this question. Do
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  Speaker 1: fish ever get thirsty? Right? Uh? And the first thing
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  Speaker 1: that Nathan Chandler points out, which is, you know, very
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  Speaker 1: easy and I think Nathan interviewed some people, uh that
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  Speaker 1: no more than we do about fish and their needs
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  Speaker 1: and wants. But the first thing they point out is like,
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  Speaker 1: that's kind of a weird question because you can't really
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  Speaker 1: tell whether an animal like thinks I'm thirsty or not.
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  Speaker 1: The real question is basically, do fish drink and do
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  Speaker 1: they need to hydrate like we do? Yeah, And Nathan
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  Speaker 1: Chainer is like, come on, this is what I meant
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  Speaker 1: pencil neck right? Um? So uh that that is ultimately
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  Speaker 1: the question that we're after. So um, if you are
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  Speaker 1: ever thirsty, you know, there's it's kind of like hunger,
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  Speaker 1: like you have a sensation that tells you you need
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  Speaker 1: to eat food. We need energy. This is the same
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  Speaker 1: thing your body sends you all sorts of cues and
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  Speaker 1: signals that says you need to drink some water because
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  Speaker 1: we need to be hydrated. And the whole point of
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  Speaker 1: staying hydrated is not just to drink water, which is fun,
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  Speaker 1: but that's not the point. The point is that we
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  Speaker 1: have all sorts of like little minerals and salts and
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  Speaker 1: electro lights, according to the good people at Gatorade, in
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  Speaker 1: our bodies that we need to keep at a certain level,
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  Speaker 1: and we keep them at a certain level of certain
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  Speaker 1: concentration by regulating our water intake. Right, So that's how
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  Speaker 1: we stay hydrated. And that's the point of staying hydrated.
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  Speaker 1: And it turns out that fish basically have to do
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  Speaker 1: the same thing despite living in water, or actually I
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  Speaker 1: guess because they live in water. Yeah, This whole process
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  Speaker 1: is called osma regulation, and fish do this. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we're very closely related to fish, so it's not the
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  Speaker 1: most different process for them. Even though we don't have gills.
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  Speaker 1: It would be kind of fun if we did, but
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  Speaker 1: we don't. But their kidneys are a big part of
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  Speaker 1: this obviously in maintaining just like with us, those salt levels. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And then they do have those gills, and those gills
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  Speaker 1: have cells that exchange water and salt, and again just
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  Speaker 1: trying to keep the right uh electro political balance. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think that's a great way to put it. Or
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  Speaker 1: I could just say electro light balance. Okay, I like
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  Speaker 1: the electrolytical all right, so you're gonna keep it in. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean I'm not gonna I'm not gonna cut it out.
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  Speaker 1: I've said much dumber things. I don't think it's dumb
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  Speaker 1: at all. I think sing and chuck. I have to
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  Speaker 1: say if if that isn't a term, you're just coined
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  Speaker 1: a term, because I'm going to spend the rest of
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  Speaker 1: my day's promoting electrolytical Okay, great. So, Um, the it
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  Speaker 1: turns out though, this OSMO regulation, I guess the um,
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  Speaker 1: the process or the systems or the components for carrying
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  Speaker 1: out OSMO regulation are the same basically across fish species.
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  Speaker 1: You know, similar enough that you could call them the
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  Speaker 1: same for our purposes today. Um. But what they do
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  Speaker 1: or how they do it, or what their goal is
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  Speaker 1: depends on what kind of water the fish lives in
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  Speaker 1: salt water or freshwater, or if the fish can kind
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  Speaker 1: of transcend both kinds of water. And I propose we
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  Speaker 1: take a break and come back and talk about the
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  Speaker 1: setup that I just did. Sounds great, all right, freshwater fish?
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  Speaker 1: Should we start there? Yeah? I think so. It's a
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  Speaker 1: good place to start your common large mouth bass. Let's say,
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  Speaker 1: sure that can eat a squirrel during a squirrel stampede.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. I forgot about that. So I learned a
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  Speaker 1: couple of interesting things here. One is that freshwater fish
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  Speaker 1: don't drink like actively because it's just gonna dilute their
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  Speaker 1: blood and other fluids in their body really quickly. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously they're what's inside their body, their tissue and their
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  Speaker 1: blood is going to be saltier than where they are
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  Speaker 1: because they're in freshwater. Uh, so they would just act
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  Speaker 1: as a big salt water or I guess salt sponge
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  Speaker 1: if they were to drink too much. So. Uh. The
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  Speaker 1: other thing I learned is that they urinate. They're constantly urinating, right,
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  Speaker 1: that's the only way to say it. And I did
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  Speaker 1: not know this. So the and the urine they pe
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  Speaker 1: out is super super watery. Um, because again, they're they're
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  Speaker 1: retaining and keeping ahold of as much of those salts
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  Speaker 1: and minerals and electro lights that they possibly can um
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  Speaker 1: because it's just they're not getting it from their surrounding environment,
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  Speaker 1: that is the fresh water. So like you said, they
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  Speaker 1: they they they are preventing from their solution in their
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  Speaker 1: blood from becoming two diluted. That's the point of their
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  Speaker 1: OSMO regulation. Correct, that's right for the freshies, okay. And
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  Speaker 1: so if they do it correctly, if their cells and
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  Speaker 1: their gills and their kidneys are working properly, they're streaming
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  Speaker 1: out there accepting salt for the body wherever it can
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  Speaker 1: get it, and they're peeing out tons and tons of
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  Speaker 1: water that they're taking on and keep being the salt.
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  Speaker 1: But um, if you go to a salt water like
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  Speaker 1: the Sea saltwater area, you find pretty much the opposite
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  Speaker 1: process happening for the same reason. Yes, And the cool
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  Speaker 1: thing here is that saltwater fish actually drink through their mouths,
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  Speaker 1: and they drink through their mouths to stay hydrated. So
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  Speaker 1: they're drinking this ocean water and so the big rub
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  Speaker 1: there is they have to avoid losing water too much
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  Speaker 1: to that salty environment. Out there, and they also have
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  Speaker 1: to keep from getting too salty, Like you know, they're
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  Speaker 1: drinking in the saltwater and they have to keep that
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  Speaker 1: excess salt out, so their kidneys are kind of not
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  Speaker 1: working over time. They're doing their regular job, like they
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  Speaker 1: don't know how hard they're working compared to other kidneys,
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  Speaker 1: but their kidneys are removing that salt and conserving the water.
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  Speaker 1: And then they have those salt cells and their gills
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  Speaker 1: pumping salt into the water. So again you have that
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  Speaker 1: same exchange going on. It's just sort of backwards or
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  Speaker 1: the opposite. And you can imagine, and their urine is
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  Speaker 1: super salty urine and um kind of light on the water, right,
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  Speaker 1: it's super concentrated solution that they're peeing out. I would
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  Speaker 1: think so, And then I said this earlier. There are
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  Speaker 1: fish that can exist in both freshwater and saltwater. And
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  Speaker 1: now that you know right now that you know about
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  Speaker 1: OSMO regulation, it's like, well, wait a minute, how does
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  Speaker 1: that work? And you can take the salmon as a
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  Speaker 1: really good example, because when the salmon go to spawn,
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  Speaker 1: they go to spawn and freshwater, usually upstream in some
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  Speaker 1: river because they like to make things hard on themselves,
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  Speaker 1: which means that when they come to spawn, they leave
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  Speaker 1: their saltwater habitat and enter a freshwater habitat. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: it was it was interesting when I was reading this,
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  Speaker 1: I was kind of like, well, how in the world,
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  Speaker 1: like do they have had their organs evolved to be
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  Speaker 1: able to do both? And it kind of has in
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  Speaker 1: a way, but not both at the same time, because
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  Speaker 1: salmon are really smart. So what they do is they
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  Speaker 1: don't go straight from their freshwater right into the saltwa water.
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  Speaker 1: They hang out a little bit and what they what's
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  Speaker 1: called like a staging area before they complete their migration,
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  Speaker 1: and it's located in a space where they get a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of the freshwater and a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: the salt water and they just they just hang out
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  Speaker 1: until they regulate, right. Um. And it's just it's as
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  Speaker 1: simple as that that they use brackish water to kind
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  Speaker 1: of like prep themselves for the changeover. And I would
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  Speaker 1: guess they do this the opposite when they go back
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  Speaker 1: into the sea again or the saltwater environment. The problem is,
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  Speaker 1: like everything, there's a there's a conundrum that they're facing
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  Speaker 1: thanks to climate change where um sea ice is breaking
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  Speaker 1: up more and more traveling further and further south and
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  Speaker 1: into um salmon's breeding grounds and there it's actually the
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  Speaker 1: fresh water that's melting off of the sea ice is
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  Speaker 1: affecting the brackish water so that the salmon have less
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  Speaker 1: chance of a to to use that area as a
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  Speaker 1: stage area. Yeah, it kind of just screws up their
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  Speaker 1: staging area because they're they're used to that area being
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  Speaker 1: having a certain amount of salinity, and then when you
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  Speaker 1: introduce that melting sea ice, it just screws everything up.
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  Speaker 1: Yet another thing that's happening. It is so chuck. How
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  Speaker 1: much seawater can you ingest at a time, like me, um,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, three and a half percent of my
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  Speaker 1: body weight, No, three and a half percent salt, I
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  Speaker 1: think by weight. Like, you know, if you're trapped, We've
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  Speaker 1: talked about this before, if you're like stranded out in
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  Speaker 1: the ocean, you know you will die if you just
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  Speaker 1: continue to drink seawater because you're gonna dehydrate, but you
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  Speaker 1: can't drink a little bit of it. Yeah, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if we should advise anybody doing to do that though,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think so. But you're you're not gonna die like,
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  Speaker 1: all right, let's forget your stranded You're just on the
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  Speaker 1: beach one day and you go, like, get a small
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  Speaker 1: cup of ocean water and drink it. You'll be fine.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think we should tell people to do that either.
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  Speaker 1: Let's just stay away from the encouraging drinking seawater in general.
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  Speaker 1: All right, how about this, You're in your house and
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  Speaker 1: you take some very clean water and clean table salt
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  Speaker 1: and mix it together. You could drink that and you
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of that and you'd be okay. No,
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  Speaker 1: I'm still not okay with that either. All right, well,
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  Speaker 1: then why do you ask how much we could drink?
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  Speaker 1: I just want to know how much you personally could.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Is short? Stuff out? Short stuff is out? Everybody. Stuff
• 11:30
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