Toadfish on the Piss!

[Aggie]

I ran across a Quirks & Quarks radio article about our humble toadfish on the CBC website - it seems that the toadfish secretes waste urea (like mammals) but uses it as a 'cloaking device':

Toadfish Pee

Most organisms need to get rid of bodily waste at regular intervals, and usually it's just excreted and the animal moves on. Except for the toadfish. Not one to be wasteful, the toadfish has come up with a way to put its own waste to clever use. While most fish pee is in the form of ammonia, the toadfish produces a mix of ammonia and urea -- which is the kind of urine most land animals, like ourselves, produce. But producing urea is an energetically expensive form of waste that land animals produce only because ammonia is toxic in their environment. That's not the case for fish, and that had Dr. Patrick Walsh wonder why the toadfish would go to such lengths. It turns out the ammonia attracts predators, but by mixing in equal parts urea, the predator can't track the toadfish. So while most fish would excrete their ammonia and quickly move on, the toadfish uses its pee as a chemical cloak. Dr. Walsh is a professor of biology at the University of Ottawa and holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Health and Genomics.

Listen here to the radio interview (opens in Quicktime):
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/media/2006-2007/mp3/qq-2006-11-04c.mp3

The radio clip includes audio recordings of the toadfish's 'foghorn' vocalizations!

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

It works for humans, too.  When I "cloak" myself in my pee, people  don't so much as make eye contact with me.  If anything, they walk away even quicker.

[Aggie]

Usually the foghorn noises are repellant enough. 

[goat starer]

I read the title and thought we were all going for Christmas drinks! I am now better educated in matters Toadfish but slightly disappointed.

[The Meromorph]

I somehow doubt whether you will remain so for long. 

[Aggie]

I read the title and thought we were all going for Christmas drinks! I am now better educated in matters Toadfish but slightly disappointed.

Well, we could do that, too! 
(Side question... is it usual for a 57 member forum to have three virtual pubs?  Perhaps we should track down other virtual pubs and do a virtual pub-crawl....)

[goat starer]

We do may not need a virtual pub as we have a real one

it is not very convenient from my home though 

are you counting my bodega? if not that would be 4!!!!! 

[Aggie]

Four it is, then! 

(had to look up bodega)

[Opsa]

Okay, so does this mean if we get pissed we will be invisible to predators? So you all will see me dancing on the bar, but my enemies will only smell something suspicious and wonder why their drinks keep getting kicked over?

If so, count me in.

[DaveL]

Hey I'm surprised cats don't use that trick. Their liquid defences are much worse than a Toadfish.

[goat starer]

I just squirt absinthe at people. works a treat!