These Types of Sharks Actually Hold Their Breath When Hunting Prey

Amaze Lab

Fish can breathe underwater, that’s sort of their thing. Dissolved oxygen in the water is pulled from the surrounding ocean via their gills, but now experts say one fish is able to actually hold its breath and they think they know why.

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00:00Fish can breathe underwater.

00:05That's sort of their thing.

00:06Dissolved oxygen in the water is pulled from their surroundings via their gills, but now

00:10experts say one fish is actually able to hold its breath, and they think they know why.

00:15According to researchers, some species of hammerhead sharks close their gills when they

00:18dive into particularly deep waters, effectively holding their breath as they move lower and

00:23lower and into cooler and cooler water while hunting, letting them maintain body heat as

00:27they do so.

00:28That's because the scalloped hammerhead shark is cold-blooded, meaning it doesn't produce

00:32its own body heat, so it has to make up for diving from warm surface waters down into

00:36the cold depths below, and maintaining body heat is extremely important for maintaining

00:40high metabolic function, something biologists say is extremely necessary while hunting.

00:45Post-doctoral researcher in shark physiology and behavior, Mark Royer, told Nature, quote,

00:50The most rapid point of heat loss for any fish, even a high-performance fish, is always

00:54at the gills, as they are essentially just giant radiators strapped to their heads.

00:58And scalloped hammerhead sharks would definitely need any help they can get, as they're known

01:02to hunt at depths of more than 2,600 feet.

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