Bronze hammerhead sharks find a way to hold their breath to keep their body temperature down while hunting. This was reported by the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
These sharks are warm water animals, but they feed at depths with a water temperature of about 5 degrees. At the same time, it is beneficial for the body to be warm for hunting and fast movement rhythm. “It was a complete surprise that the sharks were able to catch their breath holding their breath like a diving marine mammal,” says Mark Royer, one of the study’s authors.
The research team discovered this phenomenon by equipping animals with devices that simultaneously measure muscle temperatures, dive depths, body orientations, and activity levels.
According to instrument readings, his muscles remained warm throughout his dives into deep, cold water, but suddenly cooled as they approached the surface. Computer simulations have shown that sharks need to control their gills, which work like natural radiators (and human lungs) to stay warm.
Also, in a video of a hammerhead shark swimming along the seafloor at a depth of 1044 meters, the scientists saw that the gill slits were tightly closed. However, similar images taken near the surface clearly show that these fish swim with their gill slits wide open. The sudden drop in muscle temperature as the hammerheads approach the surface at the end of each dive indicates that they open their gill slits to continue breathing while in relatively cold water.
“Holding your breath warms the hammerheads, but it also robs them of their oxygen. Therefore, while these sharks hold their breath for an average of 17 minutes, they spend an average of four minutes at the bottom at extreme depths before quickly returning to warmer, oxygenated surface waters where breathing resumes.
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