If the whale breathes with its lungs, why does it die if it takes so long on land?
Wow, why? That was also my first question.
Now, let's find out with simple actions.
Sleep on your stomach, like this. Not on a springbed, yes, but on a cotton mattress, mattress, or better yet, on the floor.
What happened? One minute, two minutes, maybe it's okay.
Half an hour, it started to feel claustrophobic. There is a pressing on our chest. For an hour, the chest hurts so much that, often without realizing it, we will turn on our backs while sleeping. Once awake, we are no longer in a prone position.
Sleeping on your stomach is also not recommended for health, because… that's right, our chest is depressed by our own body weight, especially if we are on a hard bed. The position of the human bones makes it impossible to sleep on your stomach comfortably, because it means that your sternum and ribs are forced to support your body weight — something that shouldn't be their job. Conversely, if we sleep on our backs, there will be no problem because our lungs are not compressed. This is because the lungs expand forward, aided by the intercostal muscles (muscles between the ribs). If we sleep on our stomach, these intercostal muscles, in addition to having to expand the lungs, also have to lift our body slightly so that there is room for the lungs to expand.
So it is with the stranded whales. His lungs will be compressed by his tremendous weight, causing him to practically become short of breath.
That's just the first problem.
The second problem is that the whale's body is actually covered with a very thick layer of dense fat, called blubber.
The thickness of the blubber increases in winter and decreases in the summer. This layer of fat functions as an insulator, aka a barricade, so that the heat generated by the whale's metabolism does not quickly disappear in cold seawater, even in polar sea water.
When a whale is beached, the blubber turns into an enemy, because this layer of fat traps more heat, both by the whale's body and the heat it gets from the environment. No seawater reduces the whale's body heat. When the whale's body temperature gets too high for enzymes and other metabolic components to tolerate, the whale dies.
The third problem is that the whales' muscles and skeletons, although large, are very well adapted to life in the sea, which is 180 degrees different from those on land. His skeleton and muscles evolved to maximize movement, not to support a giant body. The giant body support was provided naturally by the buoyancy of the sea water.
When a whale is stranded, its muscles and skeleton become useless, and it becomes dead weight that presses on its body due to gravity. And, because of their large weight and fins that are no longer compatible for walking, whales can't just sway back into the water, like seals or sea lions.