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Mammals typically cannot breathe underwater without assistance, as they require oxygen to survive, and their respiratory systems are adapted for breathing air. However, some mammals, such as whales, dolphins, and seals, have evolved specialized adaptations that allow them to spend extended periods underwater.
These adaptations include:
Large Oxygen Reserves: Marine mammals have larger lungs and higher concentrations of red blood cells, allowing them to store more oxygen.
Efficient Oxygen Utilization: They can conserve oxygen by reducing their heart rate and redirecting blood flow to essential organs.
Myoglobin: This protein found in muscles helps store oxygen, allowing marine mammals to remain submerged for longer periods.
Blubber: Marine mammals have a layer of insulating blubber that helps them conserve heat and energy while diving.
Ability to Close Air Passages: They can close their blowholes or nostrils to prevent water from entering their respiratory system while submerged.
Specialized Anatomy: Their respiratory systems are adapted to withstand high pressure and low oxygen levels encountered at depth.
Even with these adaptations, marine mammals still need to return to the surface to breathe regularly. They cannot extract oxygen from water as fish do through gills.
Nancy Powel
Wiki User
∙ 6y agoMammals cannot breath water. Dolphins, whales, seals, walruses, and other aquatic mammals all have lungs and breath air. They seem as if they are breathing water because of the assumption that they have to breath as often as we do. However, aquatic mammals can actually hold their breath much longer, ranging from around 10min for a walrus to over an hour for some whales.
The reason they can do this has to do with the construction of their lungs and the Diving Reflex, which slows heart rate (among other things).
Mammals, such as whales and dolphins, have to hold their breath while underwater. They all have lungs and breath air and would drown if they tried to breath underwater. However, they can hold their breath for a long time (over an hour for some whales).
Wiki User
∙ 6y agoNo mammal can breathe unaided underwater. Dolphins, manatees, seals etc all breathe air with lungs and hold their breath while diving.
Humans can breathe underwater only by using technology to bring a bit of surface conditions(=breathable air) whith them into the depths.
Wiki User
∙ 14y agoNo mammal can breathe underwater. Mammals, by their very definition, are air-breathing animals, using lungs. Marine and water mammals must surface at regular intervals in order to breathe.
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoMost of them can hold their breath for quite a long time, so they just come up above the water to breathe.
Wiki User
∙ 10y agoThey hold their breath for long periods and breath when they surface.
Wiki User
∙ 13y agothey don't, they hold their breath.
Wiki User
∙ 14y agoNo.
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Do mammals have gills and can mammals breathe under water?
mammals cant breathe underwater only some of them like a beaver and the family...
Do mammals have gills and can breathe underwater?
No, mammals don't have gills, and can't breathe under water. Mammals have lungs, breathe air and have to hold their breath when diving.
How does dugong breathe in water?
Dugongs are mammals, and mammals CANNOT BREATHE UNDERWATER, but they can hold their breath for a few minutes.
Why can't dolphins breathe underwater?
dolphins are mammals, not fish. They have lungs, not gills, and breathe air.
Are lions mammals or amphibians?
They are mammals. Amphibians are cold-blooded animals that can breathe through gills underwater as well as using lungs on land. Lions are warm-blooded and cannot breathe underwater.
Can dolphins breathe air above water or do they have to breathe under water?
No mammals can breathe underwater. All mammals, including sea mammals, must breathe above the surface of the water. This is why marine mammals such as dolphins and whales frequently come to the surface.
How do fish breathe underwater?
Fish have gills, that's what helps them breath underwater.
Can a dolphin breath under water?
Dolphins can't breathe underwater because they are mammals. They go to the surface to breathe and then hold their breath while underwater
Why does Sandy wear an astronaut suit?
She wear's it because mammals can't breathe underwater.
Do orcas breathe underwater?
Orcas - killer whales don't Breathe under water. They are mammals and Breathe air with lungs. They hold their breath when diving.
Why do dolphins die in nets?
Dolphins are mammals, they Breathe air. If trapped underwater they eventually suffocate or drown.
Can narwhals breathe under water?
Narwhals are whales, and whales are considered mammals, and mammals can't breathe underwater. Therfore, a narwhal must breathe air to prevent from drowning, and to do so, they (and all the other kinds of sea mammals) must swim up to the surface every few minutes to breathe air.
