Oxygen Storage in Baird’s Beaked Whale Muscles Exceeds That of Elite Human Athletes

Its muscles hoard oxygen at levels humans cannot approach.

Top Ad Slot
🤯 Did You Know (click to read)

Myoglobin gives whale muscle a darker coloration due to its high oxygen-binding capacity.

Baird’s beaked whales possess elevated concentrations of myoglobin in their muscle tissue, allowing significantly greater oxygen storage than terrestrial mammals and enabling prolonged deep dives.

Mid-Content Ad Slot
💥 Impact (click to read)

Where elite human free divers push physiological limits with training, this whale is biologically engineered to operate far beyond those boundaries, sustaining dives lasting an hour or more in near-freezing darkness.

Its oxygen-storage system demonstrates how evolutionary pressures in extreme environments can push mammalian physiology to capacities that appear superhuman when compared to our own limits.

Source

Smithsonian Ocean Portal

LinkedIn Reddit

⚡ Ready for another mind-blower?

‹ Previous Next ›

💬 Comments