Penguin and Turtle Breaths

how do penguins and turtle breathe?
- Wanting
Tampines North Primary School, SIngapore

Penguins and turtles breath just like most of the animals that you’re used to. Like other underwater animals that breath air (whales, for example), both types of animals have lungs and have to come up to the surface every so often to take a breath. They are, however, VERY good at holding their breaths. Penguins can stay underwater for as long as 20 minutes, and Green Sea Turtles have been known to stay under for up to 5 hours! Sea turtles get some help from the fact that they have extremely slow metabolic rates - the Green Sea Turtle mentioned above can go as long as 9 minutes between heartbeats!

-Tamara

(published on 10/22/2007)