19th-century weapon found in whale

A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt - more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.

"No other finding has been this precise," said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Calculating a whale's age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses. It's rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.

The bomb lance fragment, lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.



http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CENTURY_OLD_WHALE?SITE=PAGRE&SECTION=NATIONAL&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

WOW!

:wow:

:wow: :wow:

Whales can be very... old............

Whale Brain Folds in brain = smarts



human brain

... and boy will we have some explaining to do.

Man is a terrible predator. :cry:

This whale survived a long-ago attack and was just swimming around, living his life. It is sad.

This and the white rhino story this last couple of days makes me very sad and apologetic for being a member of the "human" race.