Deep diving

Deep diving is an animal’s ability to descend far below the water’s surface and remain underwater for extended periods. It depends on managing oxygen use, pressure, and bodily changes during descent.

Mammalian diving reflex: A set of physiological responses that conserve oxygen during submersion, including slowed heart rate and reduced blood flow to some tissues. It lowers oxygen use and directs limited supplies toward vital organs during a dive.
Cuvier's beaked whale: A beaked whale known for exceptionally deep and long dives among marine mammals. Its recorded dives illustrate the extreme performance possible in a mammalian breath-hold diver.
Hydrostatic pressure: The pressure exerted by a fluid at rest, increasing with depth beneath its surface. It is the external force that compresses air spaces as an animal descends.
Mesopelagic zone: The ocean layer roughly 200 to 1,000 meters below the surface, where sunlight is dim. Many predators dive into this zone to reach prey concentrated below surface waters.
Diving response: A coordinated set of physiological changes that occurs during submersion in air-breathing vertebrates. Its strength varies among individuals and situations, complicating predictions of oxygen use.
Myoglobin: An oxygen-binding protein in muscle that stores oxygen for use during cellular activity. High muscle myoglobin concentrations give many deep-diving mammals a large onboard oxygen reserve.
Sperm whale: A large toothed whale that dives deeply to hunt squid and other prey. Its deep foraging dives show how a predator reaches prey far below the surface.
Boyle's law: A gas law stating that a gas's volume decreases as pressure increases when temperature remains constant. It predicts how air-filled spaces change volume during descent.
Foraging ecology: The study of how animals search for, select, and obtain food. Dive depth and duration often reflect where prey occurs and how animals capture it.
Foraging dive: A dive undertaken by an animal to search for or capture food. Prey pursuit can make natural dives more demanding than controlled estimates of endurance.

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