Cuvier’s beaked whales go a mile deep, hold breath for an hour — ScienceEach day

Cuvier's beaked whales are the world's deepest-diving mammal, however research of their conduct are constrained by the animals' offshore location and restricted time spent on the floor.

The new information, recorded from 5,926 dives of tagged whales off Cape Hatteras, N.C., showcases the exceptional diving talents of those animals and supplies new clues to how they make a dwelling on the extremes of depth and chilly.

"Their deep dives average about 1,400 meters, lasting about an hour, while they are feeding near the sea floor. They typically only spend about two minutes at the surface between dives," stated Jeanne Shearer, a doctoral pupil in ecology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. "It's amazing that they can dive to such depths, withstand the pressure, and be down there that long, with such brief recovery times."

Past research have documented the diving conduct of Cuvier's beaked whales in Pacific waters, Italy, and the Bahamas, however that is the primary one targeted within the U.S. Atlantic. Scientists estimate about 6,500 Cuvier's beaked whales reside within the northwest Atlantic. Populations in numerous areas exhibit some variations in diving conduct, highlighting the necessity for information from around the globe.

To conduct the examine, scientists hooked up LIMPET satellite-linked tags to 11 Cuvier's beaked whales that reside and dive many of the yr in waters a two-hour boat journey from Cape Hatteras. One tag failed, however the different 10 recorded Three,242 hours of behavioral information from 5,926 particular person dives -- each deep and shallow -- between 2014 and 2016.

Aside from the extraordinarily deep dives that these whales are capable of make, the information confirmed that they dive practically regularly, with deep dives adopted by Three-Four shallow dives that stretch to round 300 meters. How they constantly dive to those depths with out lengthy restoration intervals continues to be a thriller to scientists.

"Cuvier's beaked whales are only half the size of the sperm whale," Shearer stated. "Their dives push the limits of mammalian physiology, but we still don't know how they're able to behave this way."

She and her colleagues printed their peer-reviewed findings Feb. 6 within the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Aside from including to our data of the species' exceptional diving functionality, the findings present a baseline for managed experiments, now underway at Duke, to check their reactions to low ranges of sonar.

"It's important to understand their typical diving behavior in order to interpret the results of behavioral response studies," stated Shearer, who conducts her analysis on the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, N.C.

"These animals are fascinating and there is so much we still don't know about their behavior and physiology," Shearer stated. "They are the world's deepest mammalian divers, but we don't yet understand how they dive to such extremes."

Story Source:

Materials supplied by Duke University. Note: Content could also be edited for type and size.