do you think fish ever get thirsty
now i need to know
The funny thing is that there’s an easy answer for this. Freshwater fish don’t have to drink, water naturally moves into their systems by diffusion through their gills and skin. The fish contain much more matter than the surrounding water, so water moves where it isn’t. This poses huge problems for shellfish like crayfish (or crawdads as they call ‘em here) which produce copious amounts of highly-diluted urine in their antennal glands. They absorb so much water through their exposed tissues that they need to specifically and actively pump ions of sodium, potassium, and chloride back into their bodies. Salt-water fish drink profusely in an attempt to properly maintain their internal environments. The salty environment pulls water out of a fish’s gills and through their skin. Salmon are especially weird in that they migrate from saltwater to freshwater environments, adapting their mechanisms for survival as they migrate to their spawning waters. Science rules.
