Journal of Mammalogy 
Published Quarterly by the American Society of Mammalogists 
VoL. 3 ' AUGUST, 1922 No. 3 
THE BREATHING OF THE FLORIDA MANATEE 
(TRICHECHUS LATIROSTRIS) 
By G. H. Parker 
A man may live some two months without food, a week or more 
without water, but only a few minutes without air. This dependence 
upon an almost immediate supply of oxygen is characteristic not only 
of man but of all other warm-blooded vertebrates. All such animals 
die sooner from lack of air than from lack of water or of food. But a 
number of these warm-blooded forms, both among the birds and the 
mammals, have adapted themselves to temporary life under water 
where they are for all practical purposes cut off from the oxygen of 
the air. 
Among the birds the divers exhibit this peculiarity conspicuously, 
but the recent observations of Alford (1920), of Bolam (1921) and of 
Taylor (1921) show that ducks and grebes stay under water scarcely 
a minute and usually not over half a minute. 
In this respect the water birds are far exceeded by a number of 
mammals especially by those that live in the sea, as, for instance, the 
whales, porpoises, and other cetaceans. Beale (1839, p. 44), who was 
a surgeon on a whaler and was reputed a good observer, declared that 
sperm whales could remain under water from an hour to an hour and 
twenty minutes, and Andrews (1916, p. 57) quotes a case reported by 
Captain Melsom of a blue whale that remained below the surface 50 
minutes, then spouted 20 times, and again went down for 40 minutes. 
Andrews himself (1909) recorded an instance of a humpback whale 
that remained under water 20 minutes and of a finback that was under 
23 minutes. Whether the older records of an hour or more of sub- 
mergence will be confirmed or not is a question for the future to settle, 
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JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY, VOL. Ill, NO. 3 
