# Voluntary breating:  do dolphins really think about each breath?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voluntary-breating-do-dolphins-really-think-about-each-breath/457453>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 23, 2008, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voluntary-breating-do-dolphins-really-think-about-each-breath/457453 "2008-07-23T04:28:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voluntary-breating-do-dolphins-really-think-about-each-breath/457453/21 "2008-08-07T03:28:41Z")

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> [@](#):
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> I was listening to a BBC radio show a while ago about how this ties into the aquatic ape theory of human evolution - land mammals are strictly voluntarily breathers generally. Humans are unique in even having the ability to hold their breathe voluntarily. Which is cited as part of the evidence of a semi-aquatic history for our species.

Lots of mammals can hold their breaths. Aquatic habits are in not unusual in mammals - except for the primates, bats, and rabbits/hares, every large order of mammals has aquatic members. It’s a hard to believe any of their members could have had aquatic descendants if they couldn’t hold their breath.

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