Whales are marine mammals that dive for various reasons, such as: feeding and mating. Their prey are found at varying depths under the water and depending on where in the water column that is, whales dive to various depths for varying periods of time. Dive times range from 10 minutes to an hour or more from species to species. For instance, sperm whales can dive up to 1000 m to feed on giant squid, their main prey species. Though not common, sperm whales have been sighted in the St. Lawrence. They can hold their breath for more than an hour while harbour porpoise are generally short divers.<\/p>\n
Whales spend most of their time underwater and use their surface-times efficiently. When they come up to the surface to breathe, they take several inhales and exhales before going for a dive again. When they inhale, the muscles around their blowholes relax, which closes their blowholes. As they dive down, pressure increases with increasing depth. How do\u00a0 they cope with it? If we dive even by a few feet under the water, we feel a pressure increase both on our body as well as in the eardrum. Reason being, pressure increases by 14.5 psi for every 33 feet (10.6 meters) we go down.<\/p>\n
Whales are marine mammals that dive for various reasons, such as: feeding and mating. Their prey are found at varying depths under the water and depending on where in the water column that is, whales dive to various depths for varying periods of time. Dive times range from 10 minutes to an hour or more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":39419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1432,1433,1434],"class_list":["post-49574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whale-qa","tag-baleine-en","tag-oxygene-en","tag-profondeur-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n