![]() ![]() Penguins in captivity do not undergo the long fasting periods or weight fluctuations that wild birds face. Learn Bird Diet Types!Home Animal Info Animal InfoBooks Killer Whale Habitat & Distribution. Adaptations; Communication & Echolocation; Behavior; Diet & Eating Habits. Both resident and transient killer whales in the North Pacific do not. Some great white sharks have learned to scavenge whales killed by orcas. Adult great white sharks tend to prey more on marine mammals than. Alaska great white shark diet. Great Horned Owl Snowy Owl Black Bears Brown Bears. Facts About the Order Cetacea. Whale, Dolphin, or Porpoise: What Are the Differences? 10 Facts About Dolphins. Basic Facts About Orcas. KILLER WHALES (Orcinus orca) - Adaptations for an Aquatic Environment. Swimming. Killer whales are among the fastest swimming marine mammals. Killer whales usually cruise at much slower speeds, less than 1. ![]() ![]() They can cruise slowly for long periods of time. Killer whales are agile and maneuverable in the water. When swimming near the surface, a killer whale usually stays below water for 3. Swimming energetics. ![]() Compared to other body shapes, this body shape creates less drag (the opposing force an object generates as it travels through water). A killer whale calf swims close to its mother and can be carried in the mother's . This helps the calf swim with less energy and enables the mother and calf to keep up with the pod. Average dive depth. Although not generally deep divers, foraging killer whales can dive to at least 1. Resident killer whales spend the vast majority of the time (> 7. Over 8. 0% of dives recorded were less than 2. ![]() Overall the whales (transient mammal- eating whales) spent 5. Adult male killer whales dive more often and deeper than adult females. Maximum dive depth recorded. A group of seven killer whales were fitted with time- depth recorders in 2. One of these whales, a juvenile, twice dove to a depth of more than 2. Dive duration. These responses enable a killer whale to conserve oxygen while under water. One study indicated that a killer whale's heart rate at the surface of the water is approximately 6. When diving, blood is shunted away from tissues tolerant of low oxygen levels toward the heart, lungs, and brain, where oxygen is needed most. Certain protein molecules — hemoglobin and myoglobin — store oxygen in body tissues. Hemoglobin occurs in red blood cells. Marine mammals have a higher blood volume and more hemoglobin than comparatively sized land mammals. Myoglobin occurs in muscle tissue. ![]() How Do Adult Box Jellyfish Take Care of Their Young? Wildlife And Exotic Animals The Advantages of the Way Milk Snakes Use Their Color. Wildlife And Exotic Animals What Does an African Leopard Eat? Reptiles Rodents And Small. The orca, or 'killer,' whale is the largest member of the dolphin family. Orcas have long, rounded bodies with large dorsal fins at the middle of their backs. Orcas are highly social animals that travel in groups called pods. The muscle of whales has a higher myoglobin concentration than the muscle of land mammals. Both humans and cetaceans can experience negative physiological impacts from diving. At about 2 atmospheres of pressure (about 6. If a human diver returns to the surface too quickly, the gases, especially nitrogen, come out of solution and form bubbles in the muscles and blood. This painful and sometimes fatal condition is called . To open the blowhole, a killer whale contracts the muscular flap covering the blowhole. A whale holds its breath below water. A killer whale opens its blowhole and begins to exhale just before reaching the surface of the water. At the surface, the whale quickly inhales and closes the muscular flap. The visible spout of water that rises from a killer whale's blowhole is not coming from the lungs, which (like ours) do not tolerate water. Especially in cool air, a mist may form; it is water vapor condensing as the respiratory gases expand in the open air. In comparison to a human, a killer whale can hold its breath longer and exchange more lung air with each breath. When a whale breathes, the visible blow that appears to be. The resting respiratory rate of killer whales at Sea. World is about 3 to 7 breaths every 5 minutes. Like all mammals, killer whales are warm- blooded. A killer whale's core body temperature is about 3. Living in the sea poses a particular challenge to marine mammals, because water conducts heat about 2. The large size of a killer whale helps minimize heat loss. A whale's fusiform body shape and reduced limb size further decrease this surface- to- volume ratio. A low surface- to- volume ratio helps an animal retain body heat: the large body core produces metabolic heat. Only through the relatively smaller surface area exposed to the external environment (the skin) is that heat lost. Just under a killer whale's skin lies a thick layer of blubber, composed of fat cells and fibrous connective tissue. Blubber helps insulate a whale from heat loss. There is a heat gradient from the body core, through the blubber, to the skin. Killer whales appear to have a metabolic rate equal to what would be expected for a land mammal of similar size. This indicates that killer whales may only eat half as much food as previous models have suggested. Mammals lose body heat when they exhale. Because they breathe less frequently than land mammals, killer whales conserve a considerable amount of heat. A killer whale's circulatory system helps maintain body temperature; it adjusts to conserve or dissipate body heat. Thus, some heat from the blood traveling through arteries is transferred to venous blood rather than the environment. This phenomenon is called countercurrent heat exchange. When a killer whale dives, circulation decreases at the skin, shunting blood to the insulated body core. During prolonged exercise or in warm water a whale may need to dissipate body heat. In this case, circulation increases near the surface of the flippers, flukes, and dorsal fin. Excess heat is shed to the external environment. In male killer whales, a countercurrent heat exchange system cools arterial blood that is flowing to the testes. Another countercurrent heat exchange system regulates the temperature of a developing fetus in gestating females. Several species of cetaceans, including the bottlenose dolphin and beluga whales, have been shown to engage in unihemispheric slow wave sleep (USWS) during which one half of the brain goes into a sleep state, while the other maintains visual and auditory awareness of the environment and allows the animal to resurface for respiration. This ability may help to avoid predators as well as maintain visual contact with cohorts/offspring. Dolphins have one eye closed during USWS. Observers note that killer whales typically rest, motionless, at various times throughout the day and night for short periods of time or for as long as eight hours straight. While resting, killer whales may swim slowly or make a series of three to seven short dives of less than a minute before making a long dive for up to three minutes. Resident killer whales often rest in a group, lined up alongside each other. When sleep researchers studied two newborn killer whale calves and their mothers at Sea. World San Diego, they discovered that the mothers and calves didn't appear to sleep or rest at all for the first month of a calf's life. Over the next several months, the whales gradually increased the amount of time they spent resting to normal adult levels. Four bottlenose dolphin calf- mother pairs showed the same sleep- behavior pattern. Staying active and responsive after birth may be an adaptation for avoiding predators and maintaining body temperature while the calf builds up a layer of blubber.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2017
Categories |