Breathing and Diving

Excellent Divers

Most marine mammals make prolonged dives to considerable depths in the search of food. Especially toothed whales are excellent divers, with species diving as deep as 3.000 m during diving sequences that can last longer than 2-hours.

Breathing and Blowing

In comparison to humans, who breathe about 15 times per minute, whales inhale and exhale only 3 times per minute when resting. Holding their breath much longer than humans they extract almost 90% of the oxygen in each breath, whereas land mammals extract only 4 - 20%. Whales surface after a deep dive to take about 3 - 5 consecutive breaths. Their warm and moist breath condenses when it hits the air, creating columns of vapour that merge into single spouts, called blows. Height and shape of the blows of baleen whales are characteristic and can be used to recognize and distinguish species.

Swimming

Propulsion is provided by the flukes, which are moved up and down by muscles located in the part of the tail right in front of the fluke. The movement involves the entire lower body part. The shape of the fluke supports the reduction of water drag and provides lift during upstrokes.