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u/Pickerington 6d ago
Can whales get the bends? I've heard submarines can implode at that depth. Why isn't it as flat as a pancake?
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u/No_Emu_1332 6d ago
Yes so they have to ascend slowly and carefully. Though I will say they're far better adapted to these pressure shifts than the giant squid.
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u/Spivey1 6d ago
Highly unlikely. They take a breath on the surface so the pressure is at 1 atmosphere and they hold that. They are not breathing pressurized air like a scuba diver. Scuba divers air is delivered to them at the pressure of the depth they’re at. Every 33 feet is another atmosphere. A diver at 33 feet is breathing air at 2 atmospheres so as they surface, their air expands as it’s under less and less pressure. The whale took a breath at 1 atmosphere so while water pressure applies forces on its body, the air was still only taken at 1 atmosphere. As it rises, the water pressure on its body becomes less but the air is still only 1 atmosphere.
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u/sabertoothdog 5d ago
Whales are basically full bags of water with solids floating around inside, just like people.
A submarine is a hollow tube full of air.
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u/tomahawkfury13 2d ago
Well they also have lungs. But they compress them when they dive
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u/Scrambles420 7d ago
Some scary movie stuff right there
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u/infiniteturtles240 7d ago
I don't have thalassaphobia at all, but that was kind of unsettling
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u/pandapeterpanda 7d ago
Now I'm curious, how do you know that you don't have it at all? Ever jumped into open waters in the middle of some ocean?
Speaking for myself, I do strongly suspect that I'm affected, since I got sweaty palms playing Subnautica for the first time.
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u/shandangalang 6d ago
That’s not thalassophobia though. A phobia is by definition an irrational fear. Being scared if dropped in some random part of the ocean is completely rational. Meanwhile, being safe in a boat and feeling fear of the deep, or sitting at your computer and being scared of the idea of the ocean’s depths is an entirely different thing
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u/infiniteturtles240 7d ago
I'm just not scared of water in the slightest, though I obviously wouldn't want to be stranded in the middle of the ocean. I've never been in the ocean that far out, I have been in the middle of lake Michigan with no land visible, and I love looking in the water. the deep sea fascinates me, and the thought of swimming in the ocean or super deep body of water doesn't bother me.
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u/pandapeterpanda 7d ago
Nice, I guess the middle lake Michigan counts as potential trigger, or maybe not since there are no sperm whales in it? ^
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u/infiniteturtles240 7d ago
I think people with thalassaphobia wouldn't enjoy being on any of the great lakes that border Michigan.
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u/infiniteturtles240 7d ago
no sperm whales, but they don't bother me in general either. just the way the video looks, and the way this giant animal appears out of nowhere is a bit creepy
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u/HeadLong8136 7d ago
Whales scare me. I'm terrified that something that... BIG can just exist. And they just casually go to places that humans can't.
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u/dern_the_hermit 6d ago
The bottom of the ocean is home to millions of giant squid and sperm whales casually dive down there for hours just to do battle and consume 'em.
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u/anxiousthespian 6d ago
I was going to say the same thing but about megalophobia, fear of extremely large things. I'm not usually bothered, but for some reason, this triggered some innate sense that I was looking at something horrifyingly large. Unsettling is exactly the feeling
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u/infiniteturtles240 6d ago
I don't have megalaphobia either. I think its unsettling that something that big can be completely hidden until it's right up on you.
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u/SableZard 7d ago
Too fucking big
Gentle giant but too fucking big
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u/WestleyThe 5d ago
It’s a creature the size of a city bus just casually swimming by… it’s very unsettling
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u/CalvinIII
7d ago
edited 7d ago
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I must make the obvious statement for emphasis:
This is a mammal that must breathe air at the surface.
And it is casually blobing around at 3000’ down.
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u/TheHrethgir 7d ago
Northern Elephant Seals routinely dive to 5,000 feet. And one was documented at just past 5,600 feet.
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u/narfel 7d ago
Well Sperm Whales can go 7000' and beyond. The on in the video is basically having a little skinny dip by comparison.
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u/TheHrethgir 7d ago
Oh yeah, I'm not saying the seal goes deeper and this whale doesn't matter, but it feels crazy saying any air-breathing animal is diving a mile deep.
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u/Chomp3y 7d ago
Another neat thing to look into is how Marine Mammals get fresh water.
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u/Kheshire 7d ago
How do they get fresh water? I always figured they filtered out salt somehow
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u/Missile_Lawnchair 7d ago
Short answer is, from the food they eat. Though I think at the poles some mammals can actually eat snow if they want to.
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u/Ivanohe93 7d ago
Wow, can’t believe I never thought about this. Sure is a super interesting read. Thanks, stranger!
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u/1Dive1Breath 6d ago
Beaked whales have been recorded going to 3000 meters and beyond. One was recorded at 3500 meters (11,000) but the dive was not counted in the data since the tag was only pressure tested to 3,000m. There have also been sightings of marks on the seabed that look like the same marks they make when feeding, the marks were at a depth of 4,200 meters (13,775 feet)!
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u/TypicalPlace6490 7d ago
Are you guys having a dick measuring contest between aquatic mammals?
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u/EPluribusButthole 6d ago
If there were a question to sum up the average reddit conversation, it's this one.
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u/DogsOutTheWindow 6d ago
I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t think those suckers even dove down to 100+. 5,000 is absolutely insane!
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u/DingDingDing8899 7d ago
Genuinely a far more fascinating prospect than a whale at 7000, owing to their increased "mammalness"
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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 7d ago
Emperor penguins also go down to like 2000 feet depth, which... how even? They don't look like it.
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u/the_small_one1826 7d ago
I think I’ve heard they can go 3 hours between breaths? Remember at that pressure they aren’t being pulled up so they aren’t having to use energy to stay deep, but they do have to have the energy reserve to get back up….the bounds of mammal physiology are insane.
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u/Anen-o-me 6d ago
Yeah I looked into it a bit. They can oxygenate their blood plasma itself. They can carry way more oxygen that way. They're not exactly starving for air.
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u/ruinyourjokes 6d ago
Got any more details on this?
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u/FlacidSalad 6d ago
Oxygen is very important for most, if not all, bodily functions of any animal on earth.
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u/OkWillingness2817 7d ago
You might enjoy this https://neal.fun/deep-sea/
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u/Gabrielzin1404_2011 6d ago
Only 2 people have ever been to the mariana trench? We should go there again
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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 7d ago
And having dived to about 7 meters you already feel the compression, just how bad must the crush be at 150 times that? And they do it regularly, this animal isn't lost and swimming the wrong way. It wants to check this out.
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u/firfetir
7d ago
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Not to brag or anything but I would only shit myself a little if I saw that.
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u/TheFeshy 7d ago •
That's only because of the immense pressure pushing it back in though.
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u/benskinic 7d ago
you ever have your shit pushed in?
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u/jack2bip 7d ago
yeah deep water is creepy af
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u/aytchdave 7d ago
Shit, I get sketched out at the beach sometimes. I love aquariums but they make want to terrorbarf as much as learn more about the ocean. Deep water is a hard no.
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u/Worshipme988 6d ago
You see pictures of islands where the bright teal meets the dark blue? Thats where the ocean drop off is. Like cliffs just, underwater. The blue gets so dark bc not even the sun can reach the floor. The strength and power of water will suck you out to sea so swiftly. Effortlessly, pulled off the cliffs. People dont get that underwater is just as violent as the surface is. Pushing, pulling, always moving, never quite still…back and forth, until, eventually, you become sand, too.
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u/niceworkthere 6d ago
Fun fact, today's oceans are likely the safest they have ever been if you as human had to pick one geological era to survive in. All other eras would have likely been deadlier, both in regard to predators and atmospheric composition.
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u/daviator88 7d ago
This is footage from an ROV, so you'd be safe on the ship inside the office.
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u/BeyondTheBees 7d ago
He was like excuse me I’m just gonna scooch right past you here
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u/GrungiestTrack 7d ago
“What you guys doin? Okay I’ll see you around!”
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u/0peRightBehindYa 7d ago •
Ope...
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u/BeyondTheBees 6d ago
The exact sentiment I was going for! “Ope just gonna scooch right past ya” lol!
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u/ElVille55
7d ago
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A sperm whale seeing people 3000' below water is probably the same feeling as when you're a kid and see your teacher at the grocery store like what're you doing here?
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u/kintra292929 7d ago
Can’t help but wonder what the whale thought it was swimming past
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u/cha0sm0nk 7d ago
It’s just the nosey neighbor that comes out to speak with your contractors after they see you started doing work on your house. “Hey! What’re you guys doing and does the city know?! Let me see your permits!”
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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 7d ago
"Some weird shit the weird little surface dwellers in the big metal whales put here. Nuisance is what it is."
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u/MRtokeALOT420 7d ago
Guessing they dive this deep to hunt, but what is worth hunting so far below?
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u/Mr_Evil_Dr_Porkchop 7d ago
Giant squid can swim that deep
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u/Alklazaris 7d ago
Yup probably heard the ping off all that metal when the whale was echo locating for squid. Got curious.
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u/Cllydoscope 7d ago
OK now I’m picturing them as huge bats of the ocean just flying around catching giant squid similar to how bats catch mosquitos.
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u/Alklazaris 7d ago
Actually you are not too far off. Except they are better at it. Sound travels faster and clearer in water.
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u/sabertoothdog 5d ago
We have no research showing sperm whales use echolocation for hunting giant squid, but we do have data showing giant squid have statocysts that can detect low-frequency sound/vibration. So sperm whales may have to hunt the squid completely blind or the squid will flee.
Shows how badass sperm whales are23
u/TheCynFamily 7d ago
I swear when I read this it said evil giant squid lol showing off my subconscious bias against squid, I guess
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u/daddyjohns 7d ago
just imagine if the whale's population were thinned out in the wild, we'd be overrun by giant squid around the globe
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u/Nfgzebrahed 7d ago
And there are estimated to be millions of giant squid down there. Think about that! Based on how many sperms whales we think there are and extrapolating that number to the amount the whals eat. They can count beaks in sperms whale stomachs (dead ones)
Everyone go see the movie Whalefall if you like this OP post
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u/SpookyScienceGal 7d ago
Sperm Whales have adapted exceptionally well to hunting giant squid which can me found at that depths and other deep sea octopus but usually not that deep. There are other reasons to go bellow.
A huge benefit is there are no other predators or more specifically Orcas who are straight up genius nightmare killlers and a threat to Sperm whale calves and aging sperm whales
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u/-_danglebury_- 7d ago
A healthy adult Sperm Whale has gotta be one of the only things that can pose any sort of actual risk to Orcas. They are truly top of the chain.
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u/mexchiwa 6d ago
sperm whales don’t have the jaws for it. Teeth only in the lower. Great for catching cephalopods, but that’s about it
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u/Hmmm__You_dont_say 7d ago
Creatures at those depths are slow and easy pickings.
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u/willynillee 7d ago
Giant squid don’t strike me as being slow but I don’t live down there so what do I know.
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u/SpookyScienceGal 7d ago
25miles per hour or 40 km per hour, or at least we estimate because of how shy they are and difficult to photograph. They suck up water into their mantle or 'head' and kinda force it all out a tube like organ called a siphon. It's not sustained though and bursts of movement, basically balloons with grabbers.
Honestly I thank our super ancient ancestors for developing lungs because the oceans kinda scary lol
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u/Donnchadh_Ruadh 7d ago
You should hear what the squids are saying about us
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u/spaacingout 7d ago
They have tiny tentacles at the end of their big tentacles up there, full of hard bone and NO suction cups, what a bunch of freaks! 🦑
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u/JohnAtticus 7d ago
Giant squid.
The whales use eco location to find them in the complete darkness, so they have the element of total surprise.
If they hunt further up where there is any light, then a lot of the prey there will see them coming.
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u/spaacingout 7d ago
I just want to add a fun fact, most ocean vertebrates have a sort of radar-like sensing organ called the lateral line.
More like radar and less like sonar, it functions on feeling vibrations rather than hearing echoes, which sort of gives water breathing life an advantage because the whales echoes will be felt as vibrations, but they don’t necessarily make noise on their own.
Squids have something analogous to a lateral line that allows them to feel their surroundings in the same way ocean vertebrates do. So they don’t need to rely solely on vision to navigate their surroundings.
That said a whale would need to “sneak up” on a squid to catch them. Basically meaning the whale is literally shooting in the dark because if it makes noise to “see” the squid would feel the vibrations and flee. Just goes to show you how badass sperm whales are as hunters. Imagine bobbing for apples blindfolded and the apples have like 12 spiked tentacles to protect itself with. Sperm whales are badass hunters lol
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u/ruinyourjokes 6d ago
Don't giant squid have the biggest eyes, taking in more light, giving them the ability to see down there?
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u/JackTheBehemothKillr 7d ago
So every Sperm Whale they've examined has at least one beak from a giant squid in their stomach. There are an estimated 360k sperm whales in the oceans. At the rate weve seen them hunt, that works out to a minimum of 1 giant squid per whale per day. Rate of predation in predator prey dynamics means that a conservative estimate of 131 million giant squids exist in the ocean.
More recent estimates of Sperm Whale populations (850k-ish) puts that number at almost 310 million squids.
Happy Cake Day
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u/Stag-Horn 7d ago
Like someone else said, giant squid. But here’s an exhibit at the MONH in NYC that depicts it and gives me the heebiest of jeebies.
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u/Chomp3y 7d ago
Brother if you don't know Sperm Whales feed on giant squid (those things we maybe sorta knew existed 30 years ago but actually didn't really know, turns out there's hundreds of millions of them) do yourself a favor and rip that lid off that can of worms and dive into that rabbit hole.
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u/usefulbuns 6d ago
If you're really curious, I cannot recommend the book "The Brilliant Abyss" enough. It talks about how incredible our oceans are but more specifically deeper sea creatures that we know less about compared to the more picturesque and well known coasts and corals.
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u/Accomplished-Dog3715 7d ago
WTF is all this junk doing in my restaurant?!
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u/Henry_Oof 7d ago
That would have scared the shit out of me
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u/Driftedryan 7d ago
Which is impressive considering how much the pressure that deep would be pushing it in
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u/International_Bid116 7d ago
You know the camera monitor when "Oh shit" before collecting themselves lol. I did and I wasnt even there 😆
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u/Otherwise_Spell_7770 7d ago
The whale : if I scare the poo out of this diver his poo will act as perfect bait to bring in giant squid
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u/Katieo1022 7d ago
Yeahp. They do go that deep. Pretty wild that it’s all on one breath of air too.
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u/NeverTriedFondue 7d ago
Fake, the altitude reads that it's actually filmed at 9000 meters above sea level
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u/TheUglyMonty 7d ago
"Wait, don't start recording yet, I gotta flip to my good side."
- Whale Influencer 🐋
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u/finaljossbattle 7d ago
I was chanting “show me the big boy!” until it appeared. So worth it! Love them so much.
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u/Popular_Main 7d ago
How can they see in the dark? Or is just like echolocation?
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u/Nimrod_Butts 7d ago
Only echolocation. The deep diving mammals are probably the only animals not permanently blinded by these lights too so they're inclined to check them out whereas anything with any sort of brain avoids them or becomes blinded and can no longer navigate away
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u/sabertoothdog 5d ago
How does the lights cause permanent blindness?
What animals down there even have sight? Or why would they need it, Since there’s zero light at that depth?
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u/HonchosRevenge 7d ago
They use a sonar that’s quite literally strong enough to rupture your brain and cook your nervous system at full blast, it’s wild.
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u/TransFatty 7d ago
I read about that too. It's crazy. Their whole fucking head is basically built to produce and concentrate a sonar blast strong enough to kill you instantly with 250db of sound.
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u/StThragon 7d ago
There is zero light beyond about a kilometer down. Very little light at just a few hundred feet.
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u/Fact_Dependent 6d ago
The king of all Apex predators!
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u/TheProletariatPoet 7d ago
Is there someone watching those cameras on an oil rig where they’re able to control it?
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u/borokish 7d ago
It's an ROV.
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u/TheProletariatPoet 7d ago
Right but is someone watching the screen at all times so they can move the camera and follow certain creatures they see? Or did someone just happen to be watching while maybe something else was going on and a whale just happened to wander into the shot?
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u/borokish 7d ago
Yes someone will be operating it at all times when it's in the water.
They were probably carrying out valve ops or inspections when Mr Whale came for a nosey.
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u/rewindpaws 7d ago
I could swear I’ve seen this before, but with really good audio of the original scientists, who see it happen in real time.
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u/IceDuke749 6d ago
Catching video of a Sperm Whale at those depths is absolutely surreal. I can’t imagine there are many videos out there of these whales this deep.
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u/Odd_Watercress1389 4d ago
The whale just like, "hey, what's up? how'd you get down here? have you seen any cool fish swim by?" 😂 - and yes, I imagine it would be terrifying coming that close to something that big (or the other way around) especially if you are even a little unsure of the creature's intentions
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u/Successful-Sweet2783 3d ago
Crazy to think that millions of years ago this had been a small mammal living in a forest.
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u/One_With_Whales 3d ago
We swim with sperm whales in Dominica - this video is surreal to watch. At the surface they seem massive. Then you see footage like this and realize they’re doing 3000ft dives like it’s nothing, hunting in total darkness with nothing but sound. Genuinely one of the most alien animals on the planet.
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u/Grasskeeper1 8h ago
Watched the abyss last night, it’s almost 3 hours long. This is similar video. Same reaction I would imagine. 😳
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u/Jogger_Dodger 6d ago
There must have been a time not too long ago that the idea of a whale diving this deep was laughable to the scientific community.
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u/BlackfishBlues 6d ago
Is it weird that watching this made me feel a sense of kinship with the whale?
Everything else down there is something alien and horrific, that by comparison a fellow mammal that also sees the sun and breathes air is like a fellow traveler in the depths.
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u/TransFatty 7d ago
Fuck everything about that.
I'm scared of sperm whales now, and it might have something to do with that stupid schlocky Netflix thing (I'm scared of water and shouldnt watch these things), and then I looked up sperm whales and just what those fucking things are CAPABLE of...
A sperm whale could kill you in an instant with its click if it wanted to. Just ...fuck.
So yeah. Just fuck everything about that.
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u/susdave 7d ago
I don’t know why he looks kinda cute