How Long Can Seals Stay Out of Water
Man v seal: How we compare with our marine cousins
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
CLICKABLE
- Labels
- Off
- On
Freediver
Freediver can agree his breath for six minutes
Freediver Adam Drzazga explains how he can agree his breath for more half-dozen minutes at a time.
Harbour seal
Harbour seals can hold their jiff for xxx minutes
Aquarist Kylie Warner explains how common seals hold their breath for 30 minutes.
The research reveals how the oxygen-storing capacity of mammals muscles has been changed by millions of years of evolution.
The videos higher up show how a highly trained gratis-diver compares in jiff-holding power to a mutual seal.
And here we explore some of the virtually extreme examples of jiff-holding in the animal kingdom and how they match up with tape-breaking human gratuitous-divers.
Mutual even so extraordinary
Mutual seals fifty-fifty sleep underwater for short periods
Mutual seals, featured in the video higher up, are widespread and familiar, especially in the waters of the north Atlantic and due north Pacific Oceans. The females can be seen out of the water when they come on to land to accept their pups and the curious mammals' heads can frequently be spotted poking out of the water.
Just they spend 80% of their time underwater.
These seals tin dive for near thirty minutes and even slumber under the h2o. Their nervous system has an automatic shut-off mechanism that prevents them from breathing at inappropriate times.
But there are many mammals with far more impressive diving and jiff-property abilities.
Squid-eating giant
Along with the beaked whale, the sperm whale is one of nature'due south all-time defined. These whales routinely swoop for 45 minutes and to depths of more than a kilometre.
The sperm whale tin can dive for up to an 60 minutes and to depths of a kilometre
This enables them to hunt the giant squid they eat.
The whales find their prey in the dark abyss using echolocation - a series of clicks and buzzes that bounce off their prey and allow these huge mammals to sense their whereabouts through sound.
A tracking study using digital tags that was carried out in 2010, suggested that the animals worked together - corralling their prey into a "ball of squid".
Elusive beaked beast
With like digital tags, researchers at the Us-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution tracked Cuvier's beaked whales diving to well-nigh 2km and staying downwards for 85 minutes.
Images of the Cuvier's beaked whale at the surface are rare
Because they spend the vast majority of their time below the surface, beaked whales are some of the almost mysterious, and this study was the first to requite a expert guess of the tendency in their population.
1 human factor that has been partially blamed for their reject is the threat posted by naval sonar tests, every bit well as increasing levels of other homo-generated noise from commercial vessels in the oceans.
Diving mothers
Tracking tags have allowed scientists to measure out the deepest dives
Elephant seals, the largest of the seals, spend a good bargain more time out of the water than whales, but they are still impressive divers.
A contempo tracking written report of adult female elephant seals - with data from almost 300 animals - measured 1 dive to more than 1.7km in depth.
The study tracked female person seals as they made one of their biannual foraging trips.
Afterward the breeding season in February and March, they head out to bounding main for two months before returning to their colony, which is known every bit a rookery, to moult.
The success of their diving and foraging is crucial - the amount of nutrient a female finds affects her breeding success and her pup's growth charge per unit and chances of survival.
Tiny diver
"Argent bullets": Water shrews use speed to reduce the touch of colder waters when diving
It cannot even begin to compete with the giant marine mammals, but the tiny h2o shrew has some special skills that enable its thumb-sized body to survive the icy h2o.
The shrew, which is the globe's smallest diving mammal, is able to increment its body temperature just before it dives, according to a recent study.
They are even known to "smell" underwater, bubbles air from their nose shut to potential prey earlier sucking information technology back in.
Human tape
There are eight different disciplines in complimentary-diving
The elite human breath-holders are free-divers. Merely the sport does not but involve property your breath for as long as possible.
There are eight different disciplines - 6 contest disciplines, and two that free-diver Adam Drzgaza, the free-diver who features in the video above, explains are "just for records or for fun".
The subject field where free-divers compete to concord their breath for equally long as possible underwater is known as static apnea. A diver remains still and submerged for as long as they are safely able.
Adam says that meditation is a crucial part of complimentary-diving. "If you don't stay relaxed, you can't hold your breath," he tells BBC News.
He is able to hold his jiff for an impressive six minutes. But the electric current world tape is held by Stephane Mifsud of France, who managed 11 minutes and 35 seconds in 2009.
Added oxygen
Professional person free-divers train to improve their ain oxygen storage
In May 2012, a German language costless-diver named Tom Sietas remained submerged belongings his breath for more than 22 minutes.
Just the International Association for Freediving does not recognise this record, because information technology involved Sietas breathing pure oxygen to saturate his muscles in preparation for the dive.
"This i was only for a Guinness World Tape," Adam explains.
Mr Sietas did agree another complimentary-diving world record for the longest underwater swim on i breath until that was cleaved by Goran Colak from Croatia who swam 273m during a 2022 competition in Italy.
Deepest man
Herbert Nitsch, an Austrian free-diver is recognised equally the "deepest human on earth".
In a 2007, at an event held in Greece he reached a word tape-breaking depth of 214m. In 2022 he attempted a dive to 249m, but suffered from decompression sickness.
This subject area, where free-divers attempt to attain the greatest depth, is known as no-limits apnea.
This discipline is not competitive, but its records are recognised by the international association for the sport.
Adam, who has dived to 70m, explains that equalising the pressure level in his ears "uses lots of oxygen".
"Every bit you swoop deeper your chest starts to plummet, making it more difficult to get air from your lungs back to your oral cavity to equalise," he says.
"You feel your chest getting tighter, your torso squished past pressure.
"You can almost say how deep you are, even with your eyes closed."
Walking on the seafloor
The Bajau people of South-Eastern asia alive in stilt houses and fish underwater for up to five minutes on 1 breath.
Sometimes known as the body of water gypsies of Malaysia and Indonesia they are renowned equally "natural gratuitous-divers" - making their living by diving and fishing at 20m depths for v minutes at a time.
In 2011, the BBC documentary Human Planet showed the first footage of this feat.
This prompted the Academy of Liverpool researchers, who carried out the marine mammal oxygen-storing study, to wonder if free-defined like the Bajau people might take more than "seal-similar" muscles than the rest of us.
Dr Michael Berenbrink from the University of Liverpool said: "It would be interesting to report them."
Related Internet Links
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22870944
0 Response to "How Long Can Seals Stay Out of Water"
Post a Comment