Can Whales Dive to the TITANIC? A Marine Biologist EXPLAINS

#whales #kpassionate #titanic
Did you know whales can dive to the Titanic? Well, slight exaggeration, but not by much! Learn about those depths and take a look at some of the deepest diving animals on earth!

00:00 - Can Whales Dive to the Titanic?
00:41 - How Do Whales Dive So Deep?
01:41 - What Is the Deepest A Human Can Dive?
02:16 - Why Don't Whales Implode?
03:43 - Why Do Whales Dive to the Bottom of the Ocean?
04:28 - The Bottom of the Ocean
05:04 - KPassionate

The charity fundraiser to help the Oregon Coast Aquarium build a new marine mammal rescue facility will take place July 16th, 2023. Check out the KPassionate website for more information, as well as my official announcement videos:
[1] https://youtu.be/-n6iPlv8a7A
[2] https://youtu.be/Eo-VwnlVHGk
[3] https://www.kpassionate.com/upcoming-events

The Titanic lies 12,500 feet below the surface of the ocean. Cuvier’s beaked whales have been recorded reaching depths of over 10,000 feet! They did it by holding their breath for over three hours. I’ve personally held my breath for about one minute and dove to a depth of around 30 feet. That is nothing compared to the current freediving world record holder, Herbert Nitsch, who held his breath for four minutes while diving to a depth of 214 metres. Unfortunately, he suffered from severe decompression sickness and required extensive rehabilitation just to walk again.

Sperm whales dive to about 3,280 feet where they feed on giant squid and octopus. Elephant seals mostly feed on benthic fish, like skates and rays, that live on the ocean floor. So these seals will dive up 5,000 feet in search of food!

How do marine mammals survive these depths? At just 200 meters under water, or 650 feet, the pressure would pop a champagne cork INTO the bottle. At around 6,200 feet or 1,900 meters, if you punctured a scuba tank, water would rush IN instead of air rushing out.

For one. The resting position of their nostrils is closed. The same is true for a whale’s blowhole. They have to flex in order to take a breath. This is simply to prevent water from getting into their lungs.

Elephant seals, sperm whales, and cuvier’s beaked whales actually breathe OUT before their dives so that their lungs are empty. And their ribs are loosely articulated and JOINTED so that they collapse under the immense pressure of the deep ocean.

All this to say that, unlike humans, these marine mammals are almost perfectly evolved to dive to extreme depths. And they do it for a very good reason. Food.

Sources:
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/why-do-some-whales-strand-divers-they-can-get-bends-flna6c10411708
[2] https://www.livescience.com/whales-break-diving-record.html

Underwater Titanic Footage:
[1] https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/04titanic/welcome.html
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z7REEnwKOQ
[3] http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1605/welcome.html

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Additional Imagery
Oregon Coast Aquarium
NOAA Fisheries
NOAA Ocean Explorer
NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
Bengt Nyman: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Cotillo_February_2016-6570_-_panoramio.jpg
jayhem from Antibes, France: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Herbert_Nitsch_at_the_Freediving_Team_World_Championships_2006_(317185613).jpg
Fair Projects
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Killer_whales_swimming_in_the_wild.webm
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