Animal sundries: dolphins hold their breath for 15 minutes in the water

KOMPAS.com – Dolphin are aquatic mammals with a variety of different species that live in the world’s oceans.

Like other mammals, dolphin has a pair of lungs and breathes through the blowhole on the top of its head.

However, to find food sometimes they have to dive very deep and have to hold their breath.

So, how long can dolphins hold their breath?

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As we know, dolphins breathe through their blowholes, which have a muscle covering that covers them when they enter the water to prevent water from escaping their lungs..

How long does a dolphin hold its breath in water?

The average dolphin species can stay underwater for 8-10 minutes. Some dolphins can dive while holding their breath for up to 15 minutes.

Reported Sciencing, Tuesday (13/3/2018) dolphins are able to hold their breath long enough because their lungs have more alveoli, or small air sacs.

There are two layers of oxygen-carrying capillaries and the membrane that surrounds the lungs is elastic and thick.

This difference allows the dolphins to make a much more efficient exchange of gases from their lungs to the bloodstream.

Dolphins can use a sort of selective circulation process when diving in which blood flow to the skin, digestive system and the outside of the body slows or stops completely.

This keeps the heart, brain and tail muscles functioning. The atmospheric pressure from this deep dive forces air out of the lungs and into the nasal passages and forces blood from the heart into a complex network of capillaries.

In this way, the dolphin is able to squeeze every bit of oxygen from its lungs to keep it down. So this is what makes dolphins last longer under water before they surface to breathe.

If humans dive as far as dolphins, we will most likely get decompression sickness due to breathing high pressure air while diving.

But different from dolphins. This is because the dolphins just hold their breath, so they don’t experience the same consequences.

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Then, if dolphins can only hold their breath for about 10 to 15 minutes, how do dolphins sleep in the ocean?

Dolphins can float just below the surface of the water and do not drown while they sleep because of the bone structure and differences in their lungs from other mammals.

This makes them more buoyant, and it is the small motion of their tail that pushes them to the surface so they can take occasional breaths while they sleep.

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