Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by rwmj 2377 days ago
Elephant Seals dive to 2400 meters and Cuviers Whales to 3000 meters? That's incredible for a mammal.
3 comments

Beaked whales in general are fascinating. Only a fraction of a percent of people will likely every see one and only a fraction of those people will even know that they're seeing something more notable than any other whale. They're incredibly poorly understood to the point where there are very possibly species that are completely unknown to science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaked_whale

> Only a fraction of a percent of people will likely every see one

And I'm in that fraction, muahahahaha. ;-)

I was amazed at that as well about the Elephant Seal.

"One final note about life in the abyss: not all intruders from the lighted world are ROVs or submarines. A southern elephant seal tagged by Census project TOPP recently dove down 2,388 meters (~1.5 miles) from the surface. At that depth, water pressure is roughly equal to 240 times the air pressure at sea level. The human eardrum can rupture at 10 meters"

http://www.coml.org/comlfiles/press/CoML_Beyond_Sunlight_11....

That is amazing, I wonder how long that journey would be?