New study says mammals can breathe through *checks notes* their butts?

I breathe through my nose and, when I have a cold, my mouth. You probably do the same. It works well and it's kept me alive for over 35 years, so I really can't complain. But what if we were totally missing out on a novel way of breathing that nobody ever told us about? What if our bodies — and those of other mammals like pigs and rodents — were capable of breathing through a different, but also familiar orifice? I'm talking of course about our butts.

No, this isn't a painfully late April Fools' joke; Scientists from the U.S. and Japan have penned a very interesting paper based on their experiments with multiple mammal species. The researchers say that while it's not exactly the most efficient way to get oxygen into the body, mammals appear to possess the ability to "breathe" through their butts. Yeah, you read that correctly, and I'm sorry.