How the process of respiration takes place in dolphin?
Answers
Unlike fish, which are non mammalian animals, dolphins do not possess gills (gills allow fish to extract oxygen from the water) so they must come to the surface of the water to breathe.
While dolphins breathe air like other mammals they also breathe in a way that is unique to most mammal species.
In order for dolphins to inhale and exhale they must breathe through their blowhole, not their mouth.
The reason for this is that there is a major difference between dolphins and land mammals which is the fact that dolphins live exclusively in the ocean, so in order to maximize their survival and make life easier they have developed separate holes for breathing and eating.
So while humans (and most land mammals) can both breathe and eat through their mouth dolphins can only breathe through their blowhole and are incapable of breathing through their mouth; in fact dolphins don’t even possess vocal cords.
This is very important for a number of reasons.
First, when a dolphin dives underwater it is actually holding its breath.
In order to prevent the dolphin from accidentally sucking up water when hunting for and consuming prey the dolphins esophagus (food passage) remains separate from its nostrils and lungs (air passage) which is connected to its blowhole.
If a dolphins air passage was connected to its mouth and it accidentally inhaled water while hunting for food underwater there is a good chance the dolphin would get water in its lungs and possibly drown, so in theory it is extremely important that the dolphins air passage isn’t connected to the dolphins mouth.
Second by having a blowhole on the top of its head a dolphin can rest at the surface of the water without having to lift its head all the way up to breathe.
This can be extremely important when dolphins are at rest near the surface of the water as it makes it much easier for these marine mammals to acquire the oxygen they need with as little effort as possible.
Dolphins are known as conscious breathers, meaning they never fall completely asleep because if they did they might drown, so when they go into a resting state half of their brain remains alert in order to allow them to easily obtain oxygen when necessary