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Daniel Weeps / Duke University
The little-known, shy whale amazes scientists by drowning for about four hours.
Cuvier’s beaked whales are known for their deep dive skills and they stay underwater for an average of an hour.
The researchers were stunned when they recorded an animal diving for three hours and 42 minutes.
They believe it is the longest dive recorded for any whale and a record for almost all mammals.
Beaked whale species are a bit of a mystery to scientists, spending most of their time off the coast.
Cuvier’s beaked whale has a stout body, a small opaque head and a short beak. Males have two teeth that they seem to use to fight, while females do not.
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Daniel Weeps / Duke University
A group of three beaked whales
They usually hunt squid for food, usually sucking the creatures in their mouths to eat it.
Scientists say the whales have been documented chasing their favorite food, diving at about 1,000,000 meters.
When they come to the surface they spend about two minutes before diving again, which means that it is very difficult for researchers to observe and tag them.
In 2014, a whale, the longest known underwater, was recorded diving for just two hours.
In this latest study, researchers recorded more than 3,600 dives by two dozen cubier beak whales over a five-year period.
They recorded dives from about half an hour to two hours and thirteen minutes, near this point, an animal of this size should run out of oxygen.
But two dives by an individual whale “dazzled” the research team.
One was about three hours long, the other three hours 42 minutes.
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Andrew Reed / Duke University
Scare whale showing tag
The longest dive for the species was about an hour and a half, so it is the longest for a queer beak whale, but the longest for any mammal, said Dr. Nicola Quick of Duke University in Durham, USA. .
While this one person recorded completing these extremely long dives, Dr. Quick Quick says his study found that a large percentage of the animals observed are capable of going very long.
Researchers speculate that whales may have extremely slow metabolism, possibly with greater oxygen oxygen stores than average and the ability to tolerate the development of lactic acid.
“Their body muscles are built differently than you might expect from a built-in diver,” said Dr. Quick.
“They have very small brain and lung volumes. And they have a lot of muscle tissue that is best for keeping oxygen oxygen stores, which probably helps increase their dive duration.”
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Andrew Reed / Duke University
A male scare whale showing teeth
Fear can also play a part in a record dive.
This species is susceptible to killer whales and large sharks. Whales respond to threats by staying underwater for as long as possible until the predator is removed.
And even a deep dive can be in response to humans. The record came 24 days after exposure to the US Navy’s active sonar signal, and researchers excluded them from their data sets, as they could potentially be affected by noise.
Cuvier’s beaked whales are thought to be sensitive to sonar and other experts believe this could have an effect on dive length.
Nicola Hodgkins of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, who was not involved in the study, said: “Dive time recorded for more than three hours is not normal but possible and instead a person is pushed to its full limit. ”
“Only one whale, which was believed to have been compromised as a result of a very high level of noise by a military sonar, and therefore exhibited unusual behavior, as if extreme dives were carried out.”
The research team found that there was little correlation between the length of the dive and the recovery time before the whale went down again.
Scientists believe that studying these deep-diving animals can find some clues to challenging questions like cancer in humans.
“There’s little interest in working with colleagues in oncology at Duke University, and even with Covid, as it involves cells losing oxygen or being in a hypoxic state,” said Dr. Quick Quick.
“So if these whales have this hypoxic state in their tissues, and if we find out what they are doing, then could this have any other impact on human health or the health of the ocean in general?”
The study is published in the journal Experimental Experimental Biology.
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