penguin<\/a><\/strong> hits the water, its heart starts to race and it hyperventilates, which primes its muscles with oxygen. Then it dives in and does something, well, breathtaking: it cuts off the blood supply to its muscles to conserve dissolved oxygen for the rest of its body. <\/span><\/p>\nAt the same time, the bird pumps its veins with oxygen-rich blood, possibly to plan ahead \u2013 during a long dive, its heart rate may fall to as low as six beats per minute. With so little circulation through the lungs and ever-lower air stores, it may pay to load up with the vital gas before getting in too deep, so to speak. In this way, a penguin pushes its body to, but not over, the limit. Ultimately, the bird surfaces, takes a deep breath and swiftly flushes its now-starved muscles with oxygen without delay. In just minutes, it fully recovers from its dive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMain image: Emperor penguins\u00a0 \u00a9 Getty Images<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By David Brian Butvill Published: Monday, 21 November 2022 at 12:00 am Emperor penguins Aptenodytes forsteri go on regular underwater forays to hunt fish. They may remain submerged for 20 minutes or more and dive hundreds of metres deep, all on a single breath of air. They have normal lungs for a bird their size, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":22558,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep.jpg",1024,671,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep-300x197.jpg",300,197,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep-768x503.jpg",768,503,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep.jpg",800,524,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep.jpg",1024,671,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-can-penguins-dive-so-deep.jpg",1024,671,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By David Brian Butvill Published: Monday, 21 November 2022 at 12:00 am Emperor penguins Aptenodytes forsteri go on regular underwater forays to hunt fish. They may remain submerged for 20 minutes or more and dive hundreds of metres deep, all on a single breath of air. They have normal lungs for a bird their size,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/22557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}