How Long Can A Whale Stay Out Of Water

Spout of a Transient Killer Whale. Photo past Captain Yves, image taken with zoom lens

How long tin can a whale hold its breath?

Who holds the tape?

A Cuvier's Beaked Whale holds the current record for the longest dive continuing at a whopping 138 infinitesimal long dive. This was recorded back in 2014 and bankrupt the tape for diving mammals. That's the equivalent of property your breath while watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens…

This takes them downwards most 2000 meters below the waters surface.

Insufficiently, the longest breath held by a human underwater is 22 minutes and 22 seconds recorded in 2012 and, held past High german free-diver Tom Sieta.

Orca exhales as it breaks the surface — Orca exhales as information technology breaks the surface

What virtually other whales?

Sperm whales are well known for being the deep diving whales, they travel to depths of over thousand meters to reach their prey of giant squid. They are able to concord their breath for an impressive xc minutes.

The whales nosotros see in our waters don't agree their jiff for quite as long as this.

Humpback whales take been known to hold their breath for up to an hour-but we are sure glad they don't this very often! On average nosotros find on our tours that a Humpback will go down for a swoop ranging between iv-seven minutes and then come upwards once more for most half-dozen-8 breaths and repeat the process.

Killer Whales don't concord there jiff for anywhere near every bit long. Their maximum is almost 15 minuets merely on average nosotros see them surface at least one time a minute while moving speedily or every 3-5 minutes when travelling.

Diving depths of various mammals — Discover the deepest-diving animals (Credit: Pierangelo Pirak / BBC Earth)

How can they agree their jiff for so long?

You might exist quick to say " It's because they have bigger lungs, right?" merely, in nigh cases this isn't strictly true. While plainly their lungs are bigger than ours, their lung to body size ratio is the aforementioned if not smaller and that's the important role to call up.

And then how do they practice it?!

To showtime they have a very efficient respiratory system. Whales exhale get-go, getting rid of all the stale air in their lungs earlier taking in a fresh, make clean breath. Humans, on the other paw, exhale in first so exhale, leaving a lot of stale air in our lungs.

For perspective, humans only absorb 5% of the oxygen in a unmarried breath. Compare this to a whale who can absorb as much as 90% of the oxygen in each jiff. This means that a whale acquires much more oxygen than a human being in a unmarried breath to start with.

Humback Whales — Exhaling Humpback whales before going down for a deep dive. Prototype taken by SpringTide Crew with a zoom lens.

The oxygen is taken in quickly, attaches itself to the high levels of hemoglobin found in the blood, of which whales accept twice the number we do and besides to the myoglobin found in muscles, whales having 30% more of these proteins in their bodies as homo.

Then, right before diving, these mammals exhale 90% of the air in their lungs. This reduces their buoyancy, making it easier to dive. As the animals is less buoyant and at that place for more than "heavy" the animal doesn't demand to swim downwards as they tin merely sink. This sinking means less motility and therefore less oxygen use.

Additionally, to stop using and so much oxygen, diving mammals tin can shunt blood flow from their extremities and push it to the encephalon, heart, and muscles. They besides shut down digestion to lesser organs; kidney and liver function.

Finally, they lower their heart rate. Most mammals can exercise this when they dive, even humans. But in marine mammals the slowdown can be extreme. Scientists take measured the middle charge per unit of diving Weddell seals at a mere four beats per minute.