WEBVTT - How Long Can Animals Hold Their Breath?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogeldam, here you like most humans can probably hold

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<v Speaker 1>your breath for about two minutes, though in twenty sixteen,

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<v Speaker 1>Guinness World Records clocked free diver a leash Sigura Ventril

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<v Speaker 1>of Barcelona, Spain, holding his breath for a little over

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<v Speaker 1>twenty four minutes, which is of course completely wild. Humans

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<v Speaker 1>aren't built for breath holding. We've got other priorities like

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<v Speaker 1>world domination. If we had spent even a little more

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<v Speaker 1>of our evolutionary history working on holding in air instead

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<v Speaker 1>of making our brains giant and complex, we probably could

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<v Speaker 1>survive without oxygen at least as long as the average beaver,

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<v Speaker 1>which is fifteen minutes. But there are lots of air

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<v Speaker 1>breathing animals that are built for breath holding. A sloth

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<v Speaker 1>can hold its breath for a whopping forty minutes because

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<v Speaker 1>it's able to decrease its heart rate to about a

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<v Speaker 1>third of the normal. A sleeping sea turtle can hold

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<v Speaker 1>its breath for up to seven hours at a time.

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<v Speaker 1>A loggerhead turtles often forage under water for around forty

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<v Speaker 1>minutes in one go, but one study of loggerhead activity

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<v Speaker 1>found that males can voluntarily sustain themselves on one breath

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<v Speaker 1>or sometimes a quick charge up of several successive breaths,

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<v Speaker 1>for around ten hours. One female was observed going as

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<v Speaker 1>long as twenty hours. Some turtles can spend all winter

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<v Speaker 1>long at the bottom of a frozen lake in deep hibernation,

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<v Speaker 1>not using their lungs at all. The turtle secret is

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<v Speaker 1>that during this period of almost complete system shutdown, it

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<v Speaker 1>does take in a tiny bit of oxygen by breathing

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<v Speaker 1>through its highly vascularized cloaca. The cloaca being a single

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<v Speaker 1>organ found in reptiles, birds, amphibians, and even some mammals

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<v Speaker 1>that serves as the animals exit for its urinary tract

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<v Speaker 1>and digestive tract, and that's also the opening for their

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<v Speaker 1>reproductive tract. Yes, they pee, poop, and have sex with

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<v Speaker 1>this single organ in turtles with cloacal respiration, they can

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<v Speaker 1>also draw water up into their cloaca and absorb oxygen

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<v Speaker 1>from it, then flush it back out. Turtle, however, are

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<v Speaker 1>ectotherms animals that rely on outside sources for heat. It's

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<v Speaker 1>much easier for ectotherms to go without oxygen than endotherms

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<v Speaker 1>like us mammals. We use a lot of oxygen keeping

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<v Speaker 1>our systems running hot, which is why marine mammals like whales, seals,

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<v Speaker 1>and otters are so impressive. They can pull off unbelievably

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<v Speaker 1>long deep dives in order to hunt for food. Take

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<v Speaker 1>Couvies beaked whale the deepest diving of all marine mammals,

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<v Speaker 1>and the one scientists think holds the record for the

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<v Speaker 1>endotherm that's achieved the longest breath holding session. These midsized

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<v Speaker 1>whales can dive around ten thousand feet that's about three

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<v Speaker 1>thousand meters, hunting four squid and other deep sea goodies,

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<v Speaker 1>and they can hold their breath for an average of

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<v Speaker 1>sixty seven minutes, with one record dive that lasted a

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and thirty eight minutes before a Couvies beaked whale

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<v Speaker 1>broke the previous record. A northern elephant seal was the

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<v Speaker 1>gold medalist, caught holding its breath at a hundred and

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen minutes. A sperm whale now comes in third place

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<v Speaker 1>at ninety minutes. Not a long time to go without

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<v Speaker 1>oxygen when you've got an expansive mammalian metabolism to keep up,

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<v Speaker 1>but lots of marine and aquatic mammals make it work

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<v Speaker 1>by slowing their heart rates and redirecting blood away from

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<v Speaker 1>their extremities into their brains, hearts, and muscles. They even

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<v Speaker 1>have special oxygen binding proteins in their muscles that allow

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<v Speaker 1>them to store more oxygen than us land lovers. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>episode was written by Jessoline Shields and produced by Tyler

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<v Speaker 1>Clang for iHeart Media and How Stuff Works. For more

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<v Speaker 1>on this and lots of other multipurpose topics, visit our

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<v Speaker 1>home planet, how stuff Works dot com