A Cuvier鈥檚 beaked whale has made the longest dive by any mammal ever recorded, lasting 3 hours and 42 minutes. That smashes the previous record of 2 hours and 43 minutes.
The record has stunned biologists. 鈥淭his is quite a bit longer,鈥� says Nicola Quick at Duke University in North Carolina, who was part of the team that revealed the dive. 鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty amazing.鈥�
The record for humans holding their breath underwater is 24 minutes, and this involves floating motionless. By contrast, whales are highly active during dives. 鈥淭hey are hunting down there, and moving and echolocating,鈥� says Quick.
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Very little is known about the 23 species of beaked whale, as they spend much of their time underwater. To find out more about their behaviour and how they are affected by human noises, biologists have been using satellite tags to record dive duration and depth.
In 2006, these revealed that beaked whales dive deeper and stay under longer than any other mammal. They routinely reach depths of 1000 metres or more, and hold their breath for around an hour.
Since then, the records have kept falling. The latest record-breaking dive was made in September 2017. The same individual made another dive lasting 2 hours and 53 minutes. Why it stayed under so long isn鈥檛 clear 鈥� perhaps it found many squid to suck up, says Quick.
The record-setting dive wasn鈥檛 particularly deep, she says. The record for .
Whales have many adaptations for diving, including the ability to store oxygen in their muscles and blood. However, relatively small animals like Cuvier鈥檚 beaked whales, which weigh around 2.5 tonnes, shouldn鈥檛 be able to store as much oxygen as larger whales such as sperm whales, which can weigh nearly 60 tonnes.
It has been calculated that beaked whales should run out of oxygen after just 33 minutes and be forced to turn to anaerobic respiration, like sprinters and weightlifters. That should lead to a build-up of lactic acid and require long recovery times between deep dives.
While recovery time does increase somewhat for dives up to 80 minutes long, the whales staying under even longer don鈥檛 seem to need any extra recovery time. 鈥淗owever long they dive for, they come up and breathe for an average time,鈥� says Quick. 鈥淭hey are doing something we don鈥檛 understand.鈥�
Journal of Experimental Biology
