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Can sharks really not stop swimming?

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The idea that sharks will drown if they stop swimming is a common one, but it's not entirely true. There are two main ways sharks go about breathing. Ancient shark species breathed through a method called buccal pumping, which some of today's sharks still use. read more

Some sharks need to keep swimming to move water over their gills in order to breath and will fire if the cannot keep moving. Others can pump water over their gills without swimming so they do not need to keep moving. While a nurse shark can lay on the bottom and pump water, a Mako needs to keep swimming. read more

The idea that sharks will drown if they stop swimming is a common one, but it's not entirely true. There are two main ways sharks go about breathing. Ancient shark species breathed through a method called buccal pumping, which some of today's sharks still use. read more

Sharks have five to seven pairs of gill slits, depending on the species. With this method, sharks can extract about 80 percent of oxygen out of the meager 1 percent of oxygen that's present in the water; to compare, humans have 21 percent of oxygen available in the air, but take in only about 25 percent [source: Parker]. read more

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