NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Sperm whale buoyancy.
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2007 Mar 25, 18:57 -0400
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2007 Mar 25, 18:57 -0400
Wouldn't the pressure difference be provided by the sea in the form of the collapsed lungs? On Mar 25, 2007, at 1:24 PM, George Huxtable wrote: > That mechanism for avoiding the "bends" seems plausible, but there's a > question occurs to me that isn't answered. As explained by Watson, > those air receptacles, being in the head, are many feet below the lung > area, when the whale is diving, almost vertically, with its head down. > So how does the whale ensure that the remaining bubble of air, > shrinking as it compresses, doesn't float upwards into the lungs, but > instead stays down at the head-end? That must be achieved by some sort > of muscular control of the chest cavity to provide the necessary > several-pounds-per-square-inch of pressure difference. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---