Chapter 90 85．natural wonders

In all human hunting activities, hunters rely on the traces left by animals in nature to identify and determine their prey targets. Of course, the trace mentioned here is actually a wider concept, which also includes: Animals leave their own imprints in the natural environment, traces left by changing natural scenes, smells, sounds, figures... and so on. For example, a hunter can detect pheasants by hearing their crows, find wild bears by following their footprints, and track down wild wolves by smelling their scent. So what do whalers rely on to find whales?Whales can neither howl nor have footprints.

It is undeniable that whales have a special smell that whalers can smell, but this is not the root trace. If you listen carefully to the story we told earlier, you will be able to answer our question. By the way, whalers find them by their spouts. Every battle of the Pequod began with this cry: "Look, that guy is spraying water again!" From the perspective of written history, humans have discovered the existence of whales for 6,000 years, although before that, whales may have lived for millions of years, and may even be older than humans. Judging from the 6,000-year history, humans have always used water spout as the most prominent feature of whales living in nature, and this is true in all written records and pictures.

It can be seen that the scene of spraying water is an indispensable link in the survival process of whales, and at the same time, it is also the most important symbol of its survival in nature. So what's up with the whale's spout? This starts with the physiological characteristics of whales. Anyone who has studied a little bit of zoology knows that the general fish animals belong to the finned animals, and the finned animals have particularly flexible gills, which are used for breathing. When the finned animals breathe with their gills, they always breathe in air and water together, absorb the air, and then expel the water, so they don't have to put their heads out of the water to breathe directly.

It is for this reason that, except in the case of extremely low air pressure, people can hardly see the phenomenon of fish coming out of the water. It is also true that sea turtles can survive on the seabed for hundreds of years without seeing the sun. This is not the case with cetaceans, which are mammals. Like us, they have the same lungs as us. They breathe directly with lungs instead of gills. Because the lungs must receive pure, water-free air, whales must come to the surface of the water regularly to breathe air. Whales have no noses and cannot breathe through their mouths. This is because its mouth is hidden eight feet below the surface of the water, and its trachea has no passage to communicate with the mouth.This is different from us humans.

It is for this reason that whales have a blowhole, which is actually a blowhole. For the most convenient breathing, this hole grows on the top of the head, which can be said to be tailored to local conditions. Therefore, the whale uses this hole in the top of the head to breathe, sends air into the lungs, and then ejects the sea water sucked in with the air. The spewed sea water is the fountain we usually see, and it is also the channel we rely on to find whales. As we all know, people, like all mammals, cannot live without air anytime and anywhere. Take people as an example, whether you are awake or asleep, whether you are on land or in water, you cannot escape this law.

If you insist on giving it a try and getting rid of your inherent breathing behavior, not to mention too much, even if you don’t breathe for half an hour, then the only thing waiting for you is the end. No fool would do that. Almost all mammals breathe the same as humans. I say almost here, because there are also individual mammals that are not like this, for example, we have been talking about whales. All air-breathing animals rely on the oxygen in the air to supply their blood. The reason why human beings breathe continuously is that he needs to continuously supply the blood with oxygen, because the amount of oxygen obtained by a normal human breath can only supply the amount needed for two or three pulses.

If one intake of air can maintain the oxygen consumption of blood for an hour or more, that would be great, and human beings can challenge many fields that cannot be set foot. But this is not the case, human beings can only do as they are currently doing. So humans can only envy cetaceans, because cetaceans can achieve the degree we just begged, that is, not breathing for more than an hour. The reason why cetaceans can do this and have the ability to surpass humans is because of an outstanding device or structure in its body. On either side of the ribs and the backbone of the whale, there is something that humans do not have. This thing is like a bunch of tubes connected in a twisting manner, the total length may be very long, and it is used to store blood.

That is to say, after a cetacean completes a breathing activity, all these pipes in its body can be filled with blood that has been supplemented with oxygen, waiting to be used. This blood is stored in the whale's body and circulates in the whale's body when it can't breathe, enough to supply it for more than an hour. No wonder, it turns out that there is such a storage device in the body of the whale, which is beyond the reach of humans and other mammals. The breathing of whales has its constant law, that is to say, if it is not disturbed, the time spent by whales on the water surface is equal each time, and the number of times of spraying water is also equal.

The reason is simple. The accumulator for storing oxygenated blood in the whale is fixed and cannot be changed. Therefore, the total amount of oxygen it needs to inhale each time is also certain. If you see it come up from the bottom of the sea undisturbed, spray water seventy times, that is, breathe seventy times, and then sink, then it is destined to breathe seventy times the next time it comes up. times, unless it is frightened by you and dives ahead of time. However, even if it is frightened by you and dives ahead of time, it will not stay in the water for an hour and then come out. If that were the case, then perhaps there would be no whaling industry in the world.

This is because, if that were the case, all the whaling ships in the world would catch nothing, even if you had great skills. Since the whale does not breathe enough at one time, it has to stealthily surface again to inhale in order to replenish its reservoir, otherwise it would not have dived completely to the depths of the sea. When a whale does not spout seventy times, its aerobic blood storage function is greatly reduced, which prompts it to surface again and again to breathe, thus leaving opportunities for whalers to hunt them . Whale stabbers take advantage of this characteristic of whales to attack again and again and succeed repeatedly.

Therefore, no matter how powerful something is, it will also have its weaknesses. Once its enemies grasp its weaknesses and think of ways to use them, then it will only die under the enemy's attack. The spout of a whale is simply a spectacle of nature. However, you can't get close to it. This is something any whaler knows. There are two reasons. One is that the whale will never allow you to get close to it, let alone into the center of its fountain. It takes a lot of work to catch up with it, and to keep up with it. If you can do the above, unless it is in a fairy tale, or you take your own life as the price, an unchangeable price. Second, even if you could go in, you wouldn't dare. Leaving aside the danger of the whale itself, let's talk about the water it spouts. If you have been in contact with the water of the fountain, you will understand. Wherever it comes into contact with water or water vapor, the skin will be hot and painful, as if it has been touched by a strong corrosive substance. Anything more serious, and all of his skin would crack. If it gets into the eye, the eye will also go blind. Who does not know why?