Sea Turtles Match Breathing to Dive Depths? | National Geographic

researchers have learned that
leatherback turtles may adjust their
breathing above the surface to regulate
how deep and how fast they’ll make their
dives into the sea leatherbacks which
range throughout the world’s tropical
and temperate ocean waters can stay
submerged for up to 85 minutes and they
are the deepest diving reptile but they
must reach the surface to breathe before
they can dive again the researchers
place accelerometers on females as they
laid eggs on beaches on st. Croix in the
US Virgin Islands after analyzing data
from the accelerometers the researchers
determined the turtles probably regulate
their buoyancy before diving by varying
the amount of air they inhale at the
surface the researchers study is
published this month in the Journal of
Experimental Biology this video is from
the National Geographic Crittercam team
as part of a similar study off the coast
of Costa Rica observing video from the
cameras researchers in that study found
a significant relationship between the
duration of the turtles dives and the
number of breaths they took at the
surface afterward the latest study based
their findings on data collected to
determine how deep the leatherback stove
and how long their flippers stroke
lasted researchers Sabrina faucet of
Swansea University in the UK says while
many diving animals exhale before they
leave the surface to help avoid
decompression sickness leatherback
turtles descend with a lung full of air
it surmise that they ascend slowly to
the surface to avoid getting the bends
and the researchers found that deepest
divers stay buoyant the longest
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