Sep 30, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 21 segments
It’s mailbag time! We haven’t had one in a while so we have a ton of great questions – how do whales breath? how high can dolphins jump? what would happen if you tossed a bunch of human bodies into…
First question is from Jillian Mayfield from Patreon.
Yay.
Thank you, patrons.
Love hearing your questions.
She says, your lovely cover art shows leaping cetaceans.
And I wondered, based on proportion to body size, what cetacean can leap the highest out of the water? So this is going to be a dolphin species.
But before we unveil who, let's talk about why.
So water is roughly 800 times denser than air.
Large baleen whales like humpbacks... can jump high in absolute terms, reaching more than 40 feet, 12 meters, which is higher than any of us can jump, I assume, unless somebody has a secret talent they haven't shared after 15 years.
Significantly.
Yes.
But their sheer mass creates immense hydrodynamic drag, limiting their height to a fraction of their body length.
A cetacean's jump is powered by their peduncle, which is the muscular...
My
favorite word!
The muscular tailstock area just above the flukes.
Smaller dolphins possess a massive amount of explosive, fast-twitch muscle power related to their overall body.
That sounded kind of like if we were going to watch a commercial in between DuckTales and we're going to sell some G.I. Joes.
Perfect.
In terms of which dolphin has the highest lead compared to body size, though.
It's a toss-up between Pacific Whitesided Dolphins and Pan-Tropical Spotted Dolphins, both of which can routinely leap two to three times their body length, which is insane.
Crazy.
Delightful.
Especially
because
First question is from Jillian Mayfield from Patreon.
Yay.
Thank you, patrons.
Love hearing your questions.
She says, your lovely cover art shows leaping cetaceans.
And I wondered, based on proportion to body size, what cetacean can leap the highest out of the water? So this is going to be a dolphin species.
But before we unveil who, let's talk about why.
So water is roughly 800 times denser than air.
Large baleen whales like humpbacks... can jump high in absolute terms, reaching more than 40 feet, 12 meters, which is higher than any of us can jump, I assume, unless somebody has a secret talent they haven't shared after 15 years.
Significantly.
Yes.
But their sheer mass creates immense hydrodynamic drag, limiting their height to a fraction of their body length.
A cetacean's jump is powered by their peduncle, which is the muscular...
My
favorite word!
The muscular tailstock area just above the flukes.
Smaller dolphins possess a massive amount of explosive, fast-twitch muscle power related to their overall body.
That sounded kind of like if we were going to watch a commercial in between DuckTales and we're going to sell some G.I. Joes.
Perfect.
In terms of which dolphin has the highest lead compared to body size, though.
It's a toss-up between Pacific Whitesided Dolphins and Pan-Tropical Spotted Dolphins, both of which can routinely leap two to three times their body length, which is insane.
Crazy.
Delightful.
Especially
because
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