@@JohnyG29 well their lungs do get crushed to almost 1% their surface volume, their ribcage is hinged to accommodate this inevitable crushing pressure.
Very cool video as always. Interesting how these deep diving whales convert their ready access to an oxygen-rich environment into a powerful hunting advantage in the deep sea.
always been so fascinated by sperm whales, ig i just think a giant whale fighting a giant squid thousands of meters below the surface is metal as hell.
I’m just glad that there are still some truly MEGA fauna out there to observe. Whales are just as cool and awe inspiring as any Mosasaur or Spinosaurid of the past. Edit: fixed the confusion.
@@m3rkbullw0rm48 Megafauna is a scientific classification of very large animal, there are very few of them left in the world. OP migh tnot have realized sperm whales are one of the few animals alive classified as megafauna.
@@m3rkbullw0rm48I feel like the quotations/ separation of the word megafauna is a humorous play on words to emphasise their appreciation for whales. Mega is used more generally to say something is cool/big in the UK where I’m from, whereas megafauna is just the scientifically accurate way to describe their size.
If you think about it, even more scary than the idea of just diving down into the abyss is actually being one of those abyssal monsters yourself. Think about it, you're lurking down there, doing your thing, being an abyssal monster as one does, and then there starts to be this faint clicking sound, growing louder and louder. As one of these giant beasts from the great "above" plunges down to devour you. You can't get away. It knows exactly where you are. It can see you through sound even in the complete darkness, and the sonic pulse may even be able to stun you in some cases when close enough. Your doom is just homing in on you and you can only wait for it to arrive. Click, click, click...
Do baby sperm whales follow the mother down? If not are they left alone on the surface? Are there sperm calf nurseries, with babysitters? Do the mothers not dive while the baby is young? What age can they start diving?
Female and juvenile sperm whales live in large groups of up to 20 individuals called pods. They take turns to find foods and protect their youngs. Baby sperm whales can't dive, so other females within the group will guard them on the surface while another will dive into deep water to find foods.
There's a two episode documentary series about sperm whales and in particular follows a male who eventually winds up getting stranded on a New Zealand beach. I know part of the documentary's title involves "Odyssey", but I don't remember the full name.
The youngest calves stay at the surface, mainly in warm water nurseries where killer whales are rare. Older members of the family often babysit with them, not just to defend against predators but also prevent them from getting lost. These babysitters include aunts and grandmothers, but also older subadult siblings. Also, new born sperm whales are still big animals, at 4 meters long few tropical marine predators would threaten it. The greater problem lies with the beaked whales, which mainly rely on being sneaky as their main defence against killer whales, and many live exclusively in cold waters with high killer whale density.
While studying for one of my technical diving exams, I learned that the record simulated depth to which a human (commercial diver) has ever descended is 701 meters (the COMEX Hydra X project). That was apparently the point at which high-pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS) essentially became unavoidable and debilitating. I think it took the test subject about a month in that barometric chamber while the pressure was slowly decreased and he could safely come out again.
@@ias2424 Based on the Wikipedia page for Decompression practice (not a medical source), it looks like the deeper one is, the faster they can ascend at that depth without suffering issues. The rate of ascent decreases as the surface is approached. The page does not specify depths of 700 meters.
@@ias2424 That week (7 days, 15 hours) was for a depth of 180 meters. So it does not seem unreasonable for it to take a month to decompress for a depth of 701 meters. Fascinating stuff.
In addition to the species mentioned in the video, there is another whale that feed on large deep sea squids. Killer whales are now know to be surprisingly competent deep divers, capable of reaching a depth of more than a 1000m. They also prey on squid more often than people realize: the transient killer whales of North Pacific rely heavily on squid to supplement their marine mammal diet, and those in Bremer Bay in southern Australia, famous for preying on blue whales and beaked whales, have also been observed feeding on giant squid. Interestingly, this means that killer whales are not only a potential predator of pilot whales, but also an important competitor. This might explain the antagonistic behaviour between the species, where pilot whales are often the aggressor. There is even one observation where a large group of long-fin pilot whales tried to rescue a strapped tooth beaked whale from killer whale attacks. Many beaked whales feed mainly on small fish and squid, and hence do not compete that much with pilot whales, who focus on larger prey.
A part of me wonders if maybe they just really like squid, as a preference or if they're so plentiful compared to other sea creatures so easier to take.
@@diktatoralexander88 Squid is probably not as nutritionally dense as many of their other prey, and though killer whales can make deep dives they are obviously not as good, so I would say squid is a prey item they exploit during lean times when other targets (migratory whales in particular) are out of reach. Its like the situation in East Africa. Lions prefer wildebeests and zebras, but when those migrate, they have to be creative and get by with more tricky, more dangerous or just less profitable prey, things like warthogs, impalas, baboons and even elephants for instance.
great video! your talk about the large squids reminded me of the fact that some of the largest squids in existance, the robust clubhook squid, the giant squid, and the colossal squid, are all huge and deep sea squids, yet are distantly related and evolved their size and range completly independently. I think it would be cool if you did a vid on the evolution of these squids, although since there probably isn't very much information on these rarely seen creatures, a video on abyssal gigantism, or the tendecy for deep sea creatures to evolve to huge sizes, would be cool too :) keep up the great work !
Video about deep-sea squid would certainly be fabulous! The “blue planet“ DVD series has an episode on “the deep.“ That has the most alien-looking creatures I have ever seen. And the word “bioluminescence“ is used approximately 1000 times. And it’s cool every single time. The phrase “evolutionary arms race“ is also used quite a bit. Highly recommend! 🦑
I have a hypothesis that the other reason they target deep-sea squid is they use the dramatic pressure change on the squid to kill it. Squid are very hardy and flexible; a predator would have trouble killing one by bite force or even by whole swallowing (and can you imagine a sperm whale forcing a live, fighting squid down its relatively small throat?). But to kill a deep-sea squid, a sperm whale just has to grab one at the bottom and swim to the surface, and let the barotrauma do the work.
No they just suck them right in. These hunting trips can last for hours, and most of the targets are small squids. Bringing each and every one of them up to the surface wouldn't make ends meet.
I never looked into this, but a thought occurred to me that squid may have evolved to live in the deep sea to avoid large mammals like whales from hunting them in the first place. Then sperm whales (and others) evolve to exploit that food source later.
Squid has been master of the deep sea long before mammals evolved. Molecular studies suggest that different deep sea lineages diverge from one another 100mya, in the mid Cretaceous. Also, I think the pressure of predators as driver of evolution might be overstated, especially for r-selection species that can easily swat off any predators using overwhelming reproductive output.
The fact that a couple different types of big cetaceans exploit the twilight zone shows that, despite being a cold dark place, there's enough animal life there to feed tons of whales on a regular basis. Makes me wonder what all those fish/animals are doing in the twilight🤔
As you said, there's enough food and light for a lot of animals, so as Nature hates void, animals get there to avoid competition in the waters above ^^ Pretty much every time you wonder why would animals or plants live in hard conditions, it's to avoid the competition in the more gentle conditions XD
One should bear in mind that, while deep diving cetaceans are numerous and diverse, they are not nearly as numerous as the surface feeding baleen whales. Despite extreme overhunting in history, baleen whales still account for about half of the total marine mammal biomass. Their impact on the marine ecosystem is so massive, that their recovery is perhaps one of our greatest allies in fighting climate change.
They are eating each other. And the ones at the bottom of the food chain eat little bits of poop from the ones that live in the upper layers of the ocean. True story. Poop that rains from above is the foundation of the deep sea ecosystem.
That diving sperm whale footage is for some reason creeping me out - they seem like such benign creatures on the surface, but they are the kings of the deep dark.
Seems like that mammals which forage to 1000m depth all have really big size (around a tons at least). Even true about 2 elephant seal species. Elephant seals are the only 2 non-cetacean mammals make it to top 10 deepest mammal divers
It must be a trip to "spot" your prey from such distance, then have to race down to get it, only to go back up again. I think it's so neat how our human perceptions of fear, and our capacity of immense imagination, creates such a seemingly impossible barrier between surviving and thriving. I recently heard a quote I like, "Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear." Anyway, enough waxing; I love Sperm Whales (see what I did there?).
If you define Evolution by its second definition as “gradual development”, then yes Rocks will have evolved, and on a much longer timescale than most life forms. Remember the atmospheric conditions, geological activity, temperatures, interactions with other solar system objects and radiation have all changed over time as well. Large scale Iron oxide and rust was not common until oxygen was made more common by life for example. They might not go through the same kind of natural selection as life does but rocks do “evolve” after a fashion.
Strange fact: there was once a very aggressive species of unknown whale, possibly a sperm whale or a very large orca which harassed and sank ships for over 50 years around the waters of the sixth century Byzantine Empire capital, Constantinople. It was so feared that Emperor Justinian I ordered its capture, but was unable to do so. It was given the name Porphyrios.
@@JohnyG29We don't know. It was 13,7 meters long, that's four meters longer than the biggest orca ever measured. it could also be an exaggeration from our source, Procopius, I'm not sure they were able to measure it well when it stranded, as it was immediatelly attacked and eaten by the local population. Also, his name Porphyrios, means purple, probably because it was purple, or a dark-wine colour. Not really the black and white of killer whales. So the sperm whale is the most logical explanation, but sperm whales don't normally live in the Mediterranean sea ^^
@@JohnyG29most likely no. Just looking at historical evidence, killer whales have rarely sunk or attacked ships. Only a handful of ships have been documented to have been sunk by orcas. Meanwhile, sperm whales have been recorded sinking ships for hundreds of years. One individual Mocha Dick, was famous for attacking ships and was thought to have sunk between 5-22 ships alone. Another incident was the sinking of the Essex where a bull sperm whale intentionally sank the ship. Furthermore, the whale polyphiros estimated size was well above what any orca has been recorded to grow to. It also hunted alone, a behaviour more typical of sperm whales. Polyphiros had extensive descriptions of its skin colour, dark purple. No mention of the tell tale white patches and no mention of the distinctive fin on orcas. Based on all the evidence it seems highly likely that this whale was a sperm whale. It’s also more typical behaviour of sperm whales to sink ships, a weird one at that. Sperm whales barely spend time at the surface and mainly live in the deep ocean. Yet many accounts exist of sperm whales battering and attacking ships intentionally. Weird when you consider that if any sperm whale feels threatened by a ship it can just dive so deep nothing can bother it. Sperm whales are odd in that they seem to hold grudges, waiting for and attacking human ships out of spite.
After watching cave diving accident videos, I'm incredibly amazed at deep sea mammals' ability to dive down so far and come up so quickly without getting the bends.
You can only get the bends id you're breathing whie coming up to the surface too fast. The whales are holding their breath, so they don't have to worry about that.
Apparently, based on the number of giant squid beaks found in the stomach of sperm whales - scientists estimate there could be 100 million or more giant Cephalopods in the ocean.
I’m curious whether we’ve found evidence of similar adaptations (such as the hinging ribs) on extinct marine reptiles like icthyosaurs and mosasaurs. Presumably some species lived in a similar way to today’s deep diving cetaceans.
It is crazy how we can know the composition of planets so far away we could never reach them in our lifetime, but we still don't know so much about some of the largest animals on earth. I am always looking forward to science finding out new things!
A mammal evolved to supercharge their blood with oxygen, release all their air to sink like a bullet, get compressed, all because the animals down there are so oxygen-depraved they're a very easy catch, only an air-breathing aquatic animal would be able to access this niche, sooo cool!
The fact they specifically evolved to retain oxygen in their blood but expell large amounts of gasses is incredible. Means there's more to their more ancient lives than we could possibly imagine. Sperm whales more ancient ancestors were swimming around with some pretty insane animals, just the ones we know about, who knows what they had to avoid in order to survive...
There's a lot of reasons why this is one of my favorite channels; one of those reasons is he narrates his own vidoes. If these scripts were replaced with an AI voice - I would lose interest immediately.
I'm so fascinated with how sperm whales are capable of utilizing their insane sonar abilities that has an array of abilities. Even a sort of weapon mode that effects it's prey or as defensive tactics. I'm sure the intense sonar can highly overwhelm them and help them catch them. Even if for a brief second. Also it's crazy how animals can adapt to live in nearly freezing waters and not succumb to hypothermia or other negative effects of some sort? Deep sea corals have also proven to be much more abundant and diverse than was used to be thought. There is this brand new 1 hr long documentary released on TH-cam covering the research of the Schmitt research vessel and this guy does an amazing job narrating, editing, and compiling all the brand new deep sea footage alongside top notch quality information around marine biology as a whole
I saw on twitter a few days ago, a video of an adult sperm whale that has no lower jaw, either from birth or an accident and is still alive somehow!!!!
I really love the description of their hunting grounds as an oasis for them. To a human, that environment sounds terrifying, but with this perspective change we can actually understand that perhaps they are living the good life with easy access to food!
We all know that the record for the deepest diving mamal is that of humans for we have transended our biology and construct machines to handle the extrime enviroment for us.
I must say that I like the direction you are taking with your content and I wonder how many more in your audience saves your videos for moments when distractions are absent and unlikely to occur.
Random Mammal "Crocodiles are cool, I'm gonna evolve to be an ambush Predator in rivers like they do. Maybe I'll eat some fish on the side but I doubt that will happen to oft- **Millions of years of evolution later** "I am genetically designed to eat cthulu within a lightless void where I cannot breathe."
You seem to be a relatively good scientist albeit with a tendency to insert unproven statements. However the "ridiculously" is completely irrelevant and all a matter of personal biases. Why not try to be a better scientist instead of sensationalim à la Hollywood. Mixing fake and science always give fake, not science. Why don't you think about it?
Imagine an armless body builder comes at you with nothing but his teeth while and you get to have six other robotic arms and get to wear sleeves with tens of sharpened hooks as weapons...And you STILL lose. I'll never understand how the giant squids ever lose.
U missed the most important part about them. The fluid in their giant head condenses into a solid at high pressure making them sink without any effort expenditure. They when they swim back up it makes them more buoyant. This spermicidal fluid is where the whale gets its name. It’s also how they hunt. Giant lenses in the front of their head made of fat magnify their sonar that pulses thru the fluid becoming extremely loud. In fact the loudest animal sound in the world. As loud as a rocket engine. This fluid was also the reason why they were almost hunted to extinction. Because when it contacts air it solidifies. People used it to make candles. Absolutely crazy
Crazy to think that colossal and giant squid populations probably thrived during the time humans almost hunted whales to extinction, without their main predators it would have been open season on squid prey. There must be so many squid down there the at war with the whales. So sick.
The reason why whales don’t suffer from high pressure nervous syndrome is because they don’t breathe helium when they dive to deep depths like humans have to. It’s not clear why helium causes HPNS in humans, but we wouldn’t suffer from it either if we simply didn’t have to breathe helium during deep dives. In fact, we don’t suffer many ill effects from high pressure at all, it’s not the pressure in and of itself that’s the issue, it’s the fact that we can’t breathe normal air down there that’s the problem.
I believe its because of parasites. Parasites flourish in warm waters while in extreme colds there less likely to swim around. Taking whales massive size in account it can be seen that even one parasite could litearly kill the whales and the fact that leading caouse for whale deaths are parasitte infestation and humans for oil(humans have stopped this practise).
Holding your breath for an hour to go down to a realm of darkness to hunt giant squid is metal af
Then they surface, and fly off into space to truly become metal af
(Gojira reference for those who dont know)
Spermaceti sounds like cool band name
They don't hold their breath to avoid crushing their lungs, its says so in this video.
@@JohnyG29 well their lungs do get crushed to almost 1% their surface volume, their ribcage is hinged to accommodate this inevitable crushing pressure.
@@Adam-tu1qxthis comment would have been way funnier for people who know what it means if you didn't explain it
New moth light media video always makes my day :)
If Azhdarchids were living planes, then sperm whales are living submarines
Nothing that big could ever fly. Those fossils are either falsified or exaggerated
Sometimes I ask myself how it would be to life if I were a whale in my next life.
Great video and fantastic footage 🤗
Very cool video as always. Interesting how these deep diving whales convert their ready access to an oxygen-rich environment into a powerful hunting advantage in the deep sea.
Just casually dropped the line “interrogate the darkness”
always been so fascinated by sperm whales, ig i just think a giant whale fighting a giant squid thousands of meters below the surface is metal as hell.
I miss your opening animation.
You should write a book.
How do they not get the Benz?
Shouldn't the air in there blood expand on the way back up?
Calamari every day? Sounds nice
Fight me on the land big guy
3:49 was that whale farting?
I’m just glad that there are still some truly MEGA fauna out there to observe. Whales are just as cool and awe inspiring as any Mosasaur or Spinosaurid of the past.
Edit: fixed the confusion.
Why is "mega" in quotations
Likely to emphasize it.
@@m3rkbullw0rm48 Megafauna is a scientific classification of very large animal, there are very few of them left in the world. OP migh tnot have realized sperm whales are one of the few animals alive classified as megafauna.
@@Mallchad i know this already. I was asking why they put mega in quotations
@@m3rkbullw0rm48I feel like the quotations/ separation of the word megafauna is a humorous play on words to emphasise their appreciation for whales. Mega is used more generally to say something is cool/big in the UK where I’m from, whereas megafauna is just the scientifically accurate way to describe their size.
If you think about it, even more scary than the idea of just diving down into the abyss is actually being one of those abyssal monsters yourself. Think about it, you're lurking down there, doing your thing, being an abyssal monster as one does, and then there starts to be this faint clicking sound, growing louder and louder. As one of these giant beasts from the great "above" plunges down to devour you. You can't get away. It knows exactly where you are. It can see you through sound even in the complete darkness, and the sonic pulse may even be able to stun you in some cases when close enough. Your doom is just homing in on you and you can only wait for it to arrive. Click, click, click...
Damn that scared me LOL.
u should def write a book
Chilling
beautifully written!
Seconded!
"Using their sonar to interrogate the darkness" is actually such a beautiful line lmao
Isn’t it! 🤌🏽 so poetic. We need more writing like this
"WHO SENT YOU!? WHO'S YOUR CONTACT!?"
thats what i thought immediately as he said it and then i found this comment hahahahaha
Unlike "Laugh My Ass Off"
😩
@@offshoretomorrow3346 Has anyone ever said that *while trying to be poetic?*
Petition to bring back the amphibian splash intro
Count me in
Aye
I miss that intro.
Something so simple, is quite impactful!
I second that emotion
My wish that we get camera footage, photos and a documentary over the beaked whales. It’s time to get them out of obscurity.
Screw that, I want the whale POV what they are smelling, seeing, hearing, and touching down in the deep ocean!!!!
@@MaoRattoMay be in your next life you can become a beaked whale.
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a beaked whale. I thought pilot whales were the deepest diving mammal.
@@MaoRattothis!
So true! So many people don’t even know they exist.
The Australian ones are called New South Whales.
Exactly, it’s such an iconic part of this channel
@@Apost0345 huh?
lol, yes 😂
😂😂😂😂😂
New Holland
Do baby sperm whales follow the mother down? If not are they left alone on the surface? Are there sperm calf nurseries, with babysitters? Do the mothers not dive while the baby is young? What age can they start diving?
Female and juvenile sperm whales live in large groups of up to 20 individuals called pods. They take turns to find foods and protect their youngs. Baby sperm whales can't dive, so other females within the group will guard them on the surface while another will dive into deep water to find foods.
There's a two episode documentary series about sperm whales and in particular follows a male who eventually winds up getting stranded on a New Zealand beach. I know part of the documentary's title involves "Odyssey", but I don't remember the full name.
The youngest calves stay at the surface, mainly in warm water nurseries where killer whales are rare. Older members of the family often babysit with them, not just to defend against predators but also prevent them from getting lost. These babysitters include aunts and grandmothers, but also older subadult siblings. Also, new born sperm whales are still big animals, at 4 meters long few tropical marine predators would threaten it.
The greater problem lies with the beaked whales, which mainly rely on being sneaky as their main defence against killer whales, and many live exclusively in cold waters with high killer whale density.
@@kylecollier7569 I wonder if being followed around by a camera crew contributed to the whale beaching himself.
@@stevenschnepp576 no that wasn't the case. It was actually the sonar emitted by a submarine that caused the whale to eventually get stranded.
While studying for one of my technical diving exams, I learned that the record simulated depth to which a human (commercial diver) has ever descended is 701 meters (the COMEX Hydra X project). That was apparently the point at which high-pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS) essentially became unavoidable and debilitating. I think it took the test subject about a month in that barometric chamber while the pressure was slowly decreased and he could safely come out again.
Did some brief reading. You are correct. Théo Mavrostomos. Amazing!
A MONTH in decompression??
How in the world did they cope? Aren’t those chambers tiny?
@@ias2424I was unable to verify the month-long decompression. Saturation divers can require a week of gradual decompression.
@@ias2424 Based on the Wikipedia page for Decompression practice (not a medical source), it looks like the deeper one is, the faster they can ascend at that depth without suffering issues. The rate of ascent decreases as the surface is approached. The page does not specify depths of 700 meters.
@@ias2424 That week (7 days, 15 hours) was for a depth of 180 meters. So it does not seem unreasonable for it to take a month to decompress for a depth of 701 meters.
Fascinating stuff.
In addition to the species mentioned in the video, there is another whale that feed on large deep sea squids. Killer whales are now know to be surprisingly competent deep divers, capable of reaching a depth of more than a 1000m. They also prey on squid more often than people realize: the transient killer whales of North Pacific rely heavily on squid to supplement their marine mammal diet, and those in Bremer Bay in southern Australia, famous for preying on blue whales and beaked whales, have also been observed feeding on giant squid.
Interestingly, this means that killer whales are not only a potential predator of pilot whales, but also an important competitor. This might explain the antagonistic behaviour between the species, where pilot whales are often the aggressor. There is even one observation where a large group of long-fin pilot whales tried to rescue a strapped tooth beaked whale from killer whale attacks. Many beaked whales feed mainly on small fish and squid, and hence do not compete that much with pilot whales, who focus on larger prey.
Thank you for the information!
A part of me wonders if maybe they just really like squid, as a preference or if they're so plentiful compared to other sea creatures so easier to take.
@@diktatoralexander88 Squid is probably not as nutritionally dense as many of their other prey, and though killer whales can make deep dives they are obviously not as good, so I would say squid is a prey item they exploit during lean times when other targets (migratory whales in particular) are out of reach. Its like the situation in East Africa. Lions prefer wildebeests and zebras, but when those migrate, they have to be creative and get by with more tricky, more dangerous or just less profitable prey, things like warthogs, impalas, baboons and even elephants for instance.
Orcas ain’t Whales..
@@nathana.m.1622 Whale is a term used to refer to all marine mammals of this type; all dolphins are technically whales.
"using their sonar to interrogate the darkness" damn that is a beautiful line.... *chef's kiss*
great video! your talk about the large squids reminded me of the fact that some of the largest squids in existance, the robust clubhook squid, the giant squid, and the colossal squid, are all huge and deep sea squids, yet are distantly related and evolved their size and range completly independently. I think it would be cool if you did a vid on the evolution of these squids, although since there probably isn't very much information on these rarely seen creatures, a video on abyssal gigantism, or the tendecy for deep sea creatures to evolve to huge sizes, would be cool too :) keep up the great work !
@mothlightmedia !!!
Video about deep-sea squid would certainly be fabulous!
The “blue planet“ DVD series has an episode on “the deep.“ That has the most alien-looking creatures I have ever seen. And the word “bioluminescence“ is used approximately 1000 times. And it’s cool every single time.
The phrase “evolutionary arms race“ is also used quite a bit.
Highly recommend! 🦑
@@dronesclubhighjinks Deep sea creatures remain intact since the paleozoic, since alot of them still have copper blood.
I have a hypothesis that the other reason they target deep-sea squid is they use the dramatic pressure change on the squid to kill it.
Squid are very hardy and flexible; a predator would have trouble killing one by bite force or even by whole swallowing (and can you imagine a sperm whale forcing a live, fighting squid down its relatively small throat?). But to kill a deep-sea squid, a sperm whale just has to grab one at the bottom and swim to the surface, and let the barotrauma do the work.
are u saying there are exploding squid in our oceans
No they just suck them right in. These hunting trips can last for hours, and most of the targets are small squids. Bringing each and every one of them up to the surface wouldn't make ends meet.
That's how pilot whale hunts not with sperm whale beaked whale or elephant seal
I never looked into this, but a thought occurred to me that squid may have evolved to live in the deep sea to avoid large mammals like whales from hunting them in the first place. Then sperm whales (and others) evolve to exploit that food source later.
Squid has been master of the deep sea long before mammals evolved. Molecular studies suggest that different deep sea lineages diverge from one another 100mya, in the mid Cretaceous. Also, I think the pressure of predators as driver of evolution might be overstated, especially for r-selection species that can easily swat off any predators using overwhelming reproductive output.
@@vincentx2850 - Interesting information and hypothesis (about predation). Thank you
I suppose, when I think about it, I think I meant "animals" rather than specifically "mammals" but I guess it doesn't matter.
i miss the amphibian splash :(
Me too.
knew smth was missing
and the ambient background song
The fact that a couple different types of big cetaceans exploit the twilight zone shows that, despite being a cold dark place, there's enough animal life there to feed tons of whales on a regular basis. Makes me wonder what all those fish/animals are doing in the twilight🤔
As you said, there's enough food and light for a lot of animals, so as Nature hates void, animals get there to avoid competition in the waters above ^^
Pretty much every time you wonder why would animals or plants live in hard conditions, it's to avoid the competition in the more gentle conditions XD
One should bear in mind that, while deep diving cetaceans are numerous and diverse, they are not nearly as numerous as the surface feeding baleen whales. Despite extreme overhunting in history, baleen whales still account for about half of the total marine mammal biomass. Their impact on the marine ecosystem is so massive, that their recovery is perhaps one of our greatest allies in fighting climate change.
Animals who lives in twilight zone has constants migration in the night for search of food in shallow water
They are eating each other. And the ones at the bottom of the food chain eat little bits of poop from the ones that live in the upper layers of the ocean. True story. Poop that rains from above is the foundation of the deep sea ecosystem.
That diving sperm whale footage is for some reason creeping me out - they seem like such benign creatures on the surface, but they are the kings of the deep dark.
Seems like that mammals which forage to 1000m depth all have really big size (around a tons at least). Even true about 2 elephant seal species. Elephant seals are the only 2 non-cetacean mammals make it to top 10 deepest mammal divers
It must be a trip to "spot" your prey from such distance, then have to race down to get it, only to go back up again. I think it's so neat how our human perceptions of fear, and our capacity of immense imagination, creates such a seemingly impossible barrier between surviving and thriving. I recently heard a quote I like, "Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear." Anyway, enough waxing; I love Sperm Whales (see what I did there?).
New background music!
I actually like the older Fauré-like music better.
Would it be weird if MLM did an April Fools video? Evolution of Rocks?
If you define Evolution by its second definition as “gradual development”, then yes Rocks will have evolved, and on a much longer timescale than most life forms. Remember the atmospheric conditions, geological activity, temperatures, interactions with other solar system objects and radiation have all changed over time as well. Large scale Iron oxide and rust was not common until oxygen was made more common by life for example. They might not go through the same kind of natural selection as life does but rocks do “evolve” after a fashion.
Ahh, the tasty horrors of the deep.
I dream of living to see the day when we can actually discuss it all with them
That would be amazing if it ever happened..
Strange fact: there was once a very aggressive species of unknown whale, possibly a sperm whale or a very large orca which harassed and sank ships for over 50 years around the waters of the sixth century Byzantine Empire capital, Constantinople. It was so feared that Emperor Justinian I ordered its capture, but was unable to do so. It was given the name Porphyrios.
I heard that it was a sperm whale
@@S3004-k7e No, it was definitely a killer whale.
@@JohnyG29We don't know. It was 13,7 meters long, that's four meters longer than the biggest orca ever measured. it could also be an exaggeration from our source, Procopius, I'm not sure they were able to measure it well when it stranded, as it was immediatelly attacked and eaten by the local population.
Also, his name Porphyrios, means purple, probably because it was purple, or a dark-wine colour. Not really the black and white of killer whales. So the sperm whale is the most logical explanation, but sperm whales don't normally live in the Mediterranean sea ^^
@@krankarvolund7771and orcas do?
@@JohnyG29most likely no. Just looking at historical evidence, killer whales have rarely sunk or attacked ships. Only a handful of ships have been documented to have been sunk by orcas. Meanwhile, sperm whales have been recorded sinking ships for hundreds of years. One individual Mocha Dick, was famous for attacking ships and was thought to have sunk between 5-22 ships alone. Another incident was the sinking of the Essex where a bull sperm whale intentionally sank the ship. Furthermore, the whale polyphiros estimated size was well above what any orca has been recorded to grow to. It also hunted alone, a behaviour more typical of sperm whales. Polyphiros had extensive descriptions of its skin colour, dark purple. No mention of the tell tale white patches and no mention of the distinctive fin on orcas. Based on all the evidence it seems highly likely that this whale was a sperm whale. It’s also more typical behaviour of sperm whales to sink ships, a weird one at that. Sperm whales barely spend time at the surface and mainly live in the deep ocean. Yet many accounts exist of sperm whales battering and attacking ships intentionally. Weird when you consider that if any sperm whale feels threatened by a ship it can just dive so deep nothing can bother it. Sperm whales are odd in that they seem to hold grudges, waiting for and attacking human ships out of spite.
After watching cave diving accident videos, I'm incredibly amazed at deep sea mammals' ability to dive down so far and come up so quickly without getting the bends.
Same here.
You can only get the bends id you're breathing whie coming up to the surface too fast. The whales are holding their breath, so they don't have to worry about that.
Apparently, based on the number of giant squid beaks found in the stomach of sperm whales - scientists estimate there could be 100 million or more giant Cephalopods in the ocean.
Yay! A new video!
I’m curious whether we’ve found evidence of similar adaptations (such as the hinging ribs) on extinct marine reptiles like icthyosaurs and mosasaurs. Presumably some species lived in a similar way to today’s deep diving cetaceans.
Ichthyosaurus and Mosasaurus weren't mammals, they were reptiles
@@MarcoAntonio-hw7si Edited. Reptile is what I meant.
3:45 that's a whale fart, isn't it? As the whale decends, I guess the pressure on its digestive tract is enough to squeeze the air out? Hilarious.
happens (⌒ω⌒)
Been watching Moth Light Media for a few years and have watched all of the catalogue, never disappoints 👍😊
Also elephant seal capable to hunt in midnight zone deeper than some cetaceans mammals event though elephant seal is semi aquatic animals
It makes a lot of sense but it's still wild that they don't actually have any air in their lungs when they dive. Keep up the great work Moth Light!
Amazing. Such densely-packed, relevant and intriguing information, in a relaxing voice.
Beaked whales are probably my favourite cetaceans. They don't get enough attention
It is crazy how we can know the composition of planets so far away we could never reach them in our lifetime, but we still don't know so much about some of the largest animals on earth. I am always looking forward to science finding out new things!
It’s a good day when you upload.
A mammal evolved to supercharge their blood with oxygen, release all their air to sink like a bullet, get compressed, all because the animals down there are so oxygen-depraved they're a very easy catch, only an air-breathing aquatic animal would be able to access this niche, sooo cool!
Hey Moth Light, could you please put your videos in one long playlist so the videos can play one after another?
Great content 💕
^^^agreed!
Lets gooo!
My question of the day: do any whales drown while hunting?!
There’s a pub a couple blocks down my place called The Abyss and you could almost always find whales in there.
Pro tip: the whales usually have big cushy beds. 😉
Another fine video mate. You always seem to remind me that there are things about living organisms I just don't understand. Keep it up.
The fact they specifically evolved to retain oxygen in their blood but expell large amounts of gasses is incredible. Means there's more to their more ancient lives than we could possibly imagine. Sperm whales more ancient ancestors were swimming around with some pretty insane animals, just the ones we know about, who knows what they had to avoid in order to survive...
It's amazing that just by wave links they can sense how big a creature is down in the deep darkness.
Glub glub I'm a fish
click click lucky you're not a squid!
bloop bloop im a shark
Wow! I was amazed. The whales exhale before deep diving and just allow their bodies to be compressed.
There's a lot of reasons why this is one of my favorite channels; one of those reasons is he narrates his own vidoes. If these scripts were replaced with an AI voice - I would lose interest immediately.
Whales are awesome
What about The Ridiculously Mundane Lives of Shallow Sea Whales?
I hate to be pedantic, but the deepest diving mammal is actually a human, i get what you mean though.
They are so beautiful. I love to listen to them talk to each other. Beautiful ❤ i love to learn about sharks also
Sometimes I poop sometimes I don't
I'm so fascinated with how sperm whales are capable of utilizing their insane sonar abilities that has an array of abilities. Even a sort of weapon mode that effects it's prey or as defensive tactics. I'm sure the intense sonar can highly overwhelm them and help them catch them. Even if for a brief second. Also it's crazy how animals can adapt to live in nearly freezing waters and not succumb to hypothermia or other negative effects of some sort? Deep sea corals have also proven to be much more abundant and diverse than was used to be thought. There is this brand new 1 hr long documentary released on TH-cam covering the research of the Schmitt research vessel and this guy does an amazing job narrating, editing, and compiling all the brand new deep sea footage alongside top notch quality information around marine biology as a whole
4:53 Me during an exam 😅
Moth Light Media using present day footage is uncanny
Do you think sperm whales in peticular evolved their way of live to avoid competition with livytan and megalodon during the Miocene?
Great as always
We gotta stop killing whales. Their adaptations and behaviors have a lot to teach us
I agree, but would add that imo life should not need have any transactional value to humanity in order to be spared slaughter.
You just have the most beautiful voice and diction! Thanks for all of this 🤗
This is a nice little surprise after my 10 hour work shift.
Could you do a video on the evolution of vultures both old and new world species please to explain the differences between them.
I saw on twitter a few days ago, a video of an adult sperm whale that has no lower jaw, either from birth or an accident and is still alive somehow!!!!
I love educational videos with soothing voices and nice music. Great job
I really love the description of their hunting grounds as an oasis for them. To a human, that environment sounds terrifying, but with this perspective change we can actually understand that perhaps they are living the good life with easy access to food!
We all know that the record for the deepest diving mamal is that of humans for we have transended our biology and construct machines to handle the extrime enviroment for us.
Suddenly i feel like playing Subnautica again.
I must say that I like the direction you are taking with your content and I wonder how many more in your audience saves your videos for moments when distractions are absent and unlikely to occur.
scary to think that we at some point had almost extinguished them
such an unique animal
You're thinking of humpbacks. Spermacetes only got down to about 33% of pre-whaling populations before a relatively swift recovery.
hippos are closest related to whales
Another incredible video!
That's a lot of howevers
Incredible, such fascinating creatures!
These beasts descend into a pitch black Hell and prey upon the demons they find there.
Amazing video! More whale content, please!
How does it eat and hold its breath at the same time?
You really should watch the video.
It holds its nose with two fingers
Random Mammal
"Crocodiles are cool, I'm gonna evolve to be an ambush Predator in rivers like they do. Maybe I'll eat some fish on the side but I doubt that will happen to oft-
**Millions of years of evolution later**
"I am genetically designed to eat cthulu within a lightless void where I cannot breathe."
They have to open their mouth with that pressure, and swallow the meal also I guess, unless someone has seen them bring food up to eat
You seem to be a relatively good scientist albeit with a tendency to insert unproven statements. However the "ridiculously" is completely irrelevant and all a matter of personal biases. Why not try to be a better scientist instead of sensationalim à la Hollywood. Mixing fake and science always give fake, not science. Why don't you think about it?
Imagine an armless body builder comes at you with nothing but his teeth while and you get to have six other robotic arms and get to wear sleeves with tens of sharpened hooks as weapons...And you STILL lose.
I'll never understand how the giant squids ever lose.
U missed the most important part about them. The fluid in their giant head condenses into a solid at high pressure making them sink without any effort expenditure. They when they swim back up it makes them more buoyant.
This spermicidal fluid is where the whale gets its name.
It’s also how they hunt. Giant lenses in the front of their head made of fat magnify their sonar that pulses thru the fluid becoming extremely loud. In fact the loudest animal sound in the world. As loud as a rocket engine.
This fluid was also the reason why they were almost hunted to extinction. Because when it contacts air it solidifies. People used it to make candles. Absolutely crazy
Crazy to think that colossal and giant squid populations probably thrived during the time humans almost hunted whales to extinction, without their main predators it would have been open season on squid prey. There must be so many squid down there the at war with the whales. So sick.
The reason why whales don’t suffer from high pressure nervous syndrome is because they don’t breathe helium when they dive to deep depths like humans have to. It’s not clear why helium causes HPNS in humans, but we wouldn’t suffer from it either if we simply didn’t have to breathe helium during deep dives. In fact, we don’t suffer many ill effects from high pressure at all, it’s not the pressure in and of itself that’s the issue, it’s the fact that we can’t breathe normal air down there that’s the problem.
"Deep sea whales deal with high pressure environments by not fighting them, and just embrace being crushed." 😯
Basically what masking autism feels like.
You use the word "extreme"... WHY? It is not extreme to the animals! It is normal everyday life!
I believe its because of parasites. Parasites flourish in warm waters while in extreme colds there less likely to swim around. Taking whales massive size in account it can be seen that even one parasite could litearly kill the whales and the fact that leading caouse for whale deaths are parasitte infestation and humans for oil(humans have stopped this practise).
I’m in need of your prayers and healing vibes. Please keep me in your thoughts as I work towards better health.
There is not enough explanation. Is it because there is not enough food available in shallows? Is there any other pull of the deep....