Abstract
MR. GRAY'S suggestion (NATURE, Mar. 17, p. 421) that whales dying at the surface sometimes float because the air in their lungs is held in by the valves of the blowhole is very interesting, and perhaps helps also in understanding how whales can remain so long under water. There are, however, so many unusual features about whales that one cannot help wondering whether other explanations are not possible. It is, for example, conceivable that whales breathe differently from other mammals, and that the muscular effort they expend in breathing is used not for drawing air into their lungs but for driving it out. On this view the filling of the lungs would be due to the elastic recoil of the thoracic wall and expansion of the cavity following the muscular contraction, and when a whale dies and the muscles relax the lungs would fill with air if the blowhole is above the surface or with water if it is below.
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TAYLOR, T. The Buoyancy of Whales. Nature 121, 576 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121576d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121576d0
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