The Ridiculously Extreme Lives of Deep Sea Whales

at the surface a sperm well will only spend a brief moment preparing for its incredible way of life they can spend as little as 8 minutes at the surface breathing letting the oxygen seep through their blood and enrich their muscles before submerging and making the journey into the deep after pushing their bodies some of the way eventually their Goliath mass will just allow them to freefall and sink into the abyss as the water temperature drops and the sunlight Fades to a fraction of the surface they have reached their fishing grounds using sonar to interrogate the darkness picking up body shapes vastly different to anything found at the surface as the animals found here have evolved under completely different parameters due to the conditions yet a sperm well will spend the majority of its life here such an alien environment for a mammal of All Creatures to have found itself in an animal that has an ancestry going back to walking on dry land and it isn't just sperm whales that have adapted to hun in the deep sea there are several other groups of whales that have adapted to dive into the abyss for their food as well and these whales aren't closely related and have evolved to be deep sea divers on separate occasions so why don't these beasts hunt near the surface what lurs these giants into the deep the other deep sea diving whales are pilot whales and the beaked whales pilot whales are related to Oceanic dolphins and beaked whales are distantly related to sperm whales so most likely all these whales adapted to dive into the deep separately from each other it depends on the region but sperm whales regularly dive to around 400 to 1200 M and spend about 45 minutes to an hour underwater and do this multiple times a day but some individuals can exceed 2,000 M on rare occasions however the award for the deepest diving whale or deepest diving mamal ever recorded is actually the Kia's beaked whale with one exceptional whale diving to 2,992 M while holding its breath for over 2 hours on average all of the deep sea whales dive to similar depths diving to what is known as the mesopelagic zone or Twilight Zone named because although incredibly dark a tiny amount of sunlight can still just about be detected at over 1,000 M into the ocean the pressure of the water will be over 100 times greater than at the surface at these depths sperm Wells feed on a variety of different deep sea creatures like skates sharks and octopus however study of their stomach contents has shown that squid make up the vast majority of their diet studying the stomach contents of sperm Wells found off the coast of California has shown they routinely dine on dozens of different species of squid including large species that they most likely catch on a daily basis like the club hook squid and although not the most common species among the collection there were plenty of squid beaks that would have belong to the giant squid showing that they regularly hunt and eat them too although the prey sperm whales consume could be different depending on the region they live however sperm whales are known to travel incredibly long distances and don't really have territory for example the whales studied were from the North Pacific but at least two colossal squid Peaks were discovered in their stomachs as well and colossal squid live in the depths of the Southern Ocean that wraps around Antarctica although sperm whales are famous for hunting Giant and colossal squid beaked whales are also squid eating Specialists and there is evidence that many species of beaked whale and maybe even pilot whales hunt giant squid as well giant squid may have a maximum length exceeding 12 M however the vast majority don't get larger than around 9 M long and although difficult to research one study has shown the average diant squar is around 7.3 M so the average big squid would be manageable for a medium-sized species of beaked whale although the deep sea whales dive to similar depths GPS trackers have shown that they actually have quite different behaviors while in the Deep sperm whales will make their descent and then spend long amounts of time in the Deep while moving around and changing speed a lot before then returning to the surface which is similar to some beaked whales like the bottlenose whales although with subtle behavioral differences however the pilot whales seem to hunt in a completely different way they Sprint down and then return again straight away spending very little time at the bottom of their dive usually completing a full dive within 15 to 20 minutes this suggests that sperm whales search and then pursue several different prey while in the Deep whereas pilot whales May detect deep sea creatures at the surface and then race down to catch a single prey item before returning to gain access access to this squid filled realm the whales have had to make vast changes throughout their body High Press environments cause all sorts of issues the whales have had to overcome the extreme pressure will crush and collapse any open air filled cavity but also human divers and presumably all other mammals are at risk of certain neurological disorders from diving to depths greater than 100 m which is called highpressure nervous syndrome deep sea whales deal with high-press environments by not fighting them and just Embrace being crushed at the surface while preparing for a dive they are enriching their blood and muscles with oxygen but they do not take a deep breath before diving and they actually dispel the air from their lungs this is because air filled lungs will just collapse under the pressure at greater depths and they do this along with removing other air filled spaces from the body sperm Wells have ribs that are on hinges so rather than snapping they have some give and will just move back under the pressure allowing their stomach area to be squashed highpressure nervous syndrome is caused by both the speed of compression while diving but also just the absolute pressure and deep sea whales can compress much faster than humans and dive to considerably lower depth and seem to not have any neurological issues and so must have evolved some way of dealing with it however although there are some studies giving an idea of why this might be for now it actually isn't completely understood how marine mammals are able to do this sperm whales have also reduced the size of their teeth which is thought to have been an extreme adaptation for eating the more commonly soft bodied prey found in the Deep sperm Welles don't have any teeth on the top row and have relatively small teeth on their bottom jaw beakes don't really have any teeth with only the males having two almost tusk-like teeth going to these Extremes in search of food must be worth the time and energy otherwise these animals wouldn't do it and there are several theories that explain the behavior it may just be due to less competition and the harshness of the environment effectively keeps away competition from other large predators that have not evolved to withstand these conditions there are other predominantly surface dwelling predators that make trips into the deep to hunt deep sea creatures like swordfish that have been tracked diving to similar depths as sperm whale however the whales have the additional advantage of sonar that must be an incredibly powerful tool for this way of life it may also be that deep sea creatures are just really good prey many of them are large and Powerful animals and scars on sperm whale suggest they put up quite a fight but there are reasons they may be easier pray than some surface animals usually squid can be very difficult for predators to pin down because they are very fast and agile study of deep sea squid has shown that many of them may be different the area of the sea that sperm Wells hunt in is sometimes referred to as the oxygen minimum Zone due to low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water meaning the animals that live here permanently are usually adapted to a low oxygen environment because of this many of the large deep sea squid have very slow metabolisms and are actually relatively slow moving although they may be capable of short bursts of speed it is very likely that almost any warm-blooded air breathing mammal would have little issue chasing them down sperm Welles are strange animals in more ways than just what they get up to in the deep sea they have a very different appearance to most other whales and this is because they are actually survivors from a much larger family the family is named feteria and only has three species remaining the sperm whale and the pygmy and dwarf sperm whale however around 5 to 10 million years ago they had many relatives that were much more diverse most of which weren't adapted to diving into the deep whales like zygo fetta probably lived in a similar way to modern-day orcas and the levetan was only slightly shorter than a sperm whale but more broadly built and fed on the small baline whes that used to be more common at the time around 5 million years ago the sperm well relativ started to decline and it is thought to be due to the water's cooling around this time leading to a period of lower food food availability however the sperm well survived this event likely because the deep sea ecosystem it fishes from were less affected by the changing environment so the deep sea environment may contain nightmare inducing creatures but in reality for the right animal they actually serve as a great food source and the adaptation of the deep sea whales that grant them access to these deep Waters have provided them with their own Oasis thank you for watching a big thank you to all my patrons especially the big contributors that are listed here if you like content like this then consider becoming a patron as well

Channel: Moth Light Media

Views: 550,200

Keywords: Deep Sea Whales, Whales, Giant Squid, Deep sea creatures, Deep sea, Depthes, Evolution, Deep sea gigantism, Cute Whales, Darkness, Abyss, Marine mammals, Marine animals

Id: l1wpuxgutSU

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2024