Posts tagged as:

whale

24 Hours: Spade-toothed Whale (Mesoplodon traversii)

by JR Kinyak on December 22, 2007

in Mammalthons,Marine Mammals


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Whale, whale, whale, what have we here? It’s a whale skull! Neil requested this spade-toothed whale, giving me its Latin name and apology. Turns out, no one’s ever seen this animal. All we know of it is what we can gather from three skull parts that have washed up over the past 130 years or so. It’s pretty amazing that there are still so many mammals—big ones!—that we’ve never seen, even though we think we’ve seen it all and know it all.

So Neil, I’m sorry your mammal has no skin, but I think this drawing is in the spirit of your request.

If you want to learn more about this mysterious whale, you can start with Wikipedia.

Tagged as: endangered, whale

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Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)

by JR Kinyak on June 9, 2007

in Marine Mammals

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You probably already know that the blue whale is the largest animal known to have ever existed on Earth. According to the American Cetacean Society, from 1868, when technology allowed whalers to kill the blue whale, until 1966, when the hunting of blue whales was banned internationally, up to 99 percent of the blue whale population was killed. In 1931 alone, whalers killed 29,000 of the giant creatures. Whereas there once were some 350,000 blue whales in the world, now there are 8,000-14,000 or so. (Ted requested the blue whale drawing.)

Tagged as: endangered, whale

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