Cuvier’s beaked whales are likely to be the most extreme breath-holders among marine mammals. A satellite tag attached to one of these animals, swimming off the coast of California, recorded a dive to nearly 3km below the ocean surface that lasted 137 minutes. This performance exceeds that for any southern elephant seal, which is also known to be an extreme breath-holder. The Cuvier’s record-breaking dive is reported in the journal Plos Biology. Erin Falcone is a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective in Washington State, US, which led the research project. She told BBC News that beaked whales had very high levels of…
