Whales and Wiener Dogs

Bacon Narwhal Bacon Narwhal Bacon Narwhal Bacon Narwhal

Bacon Narwhal
Bacon Narwhal
Bacon Narwhal

Update: The inventor and creator of the bacon narwhal has contacted us with a link that explains how to create your own. Visit his site at least to say thanks!

in case you’re not paying attention there’s a link to a bacon bra on this page

False Killer Whales Are Actually Real Dolphins

A small population of false killer whales that live near Hawaii might be added to the endangered species list by the U.S. Government. False killer whales look like killer whales, but they are actually black dolphins that grow can grow to 16 feet and weigh more than a ton.

Proponents of the listing believe that the local fishing industry deplete food stocks while accidentally capturing the false killer whales.

Right down there is where the Moby Dick-a-thon will take place

The 14th annual Moby Dick Marathon - a 25 hour non-stop reading of Melville’s novel by over 150 people - gets started at noon this Saturday at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Robert “Bo” William (frequent WAWD reader and commenter) and myself will be reading at 8:30 PM and 8:40 PM Saturday evening. By our best estimates, we should be jumping in somewhere around “The Whiteness of the Whale.”

If you’re planning a trip to New Bedford, please read the WAWD New Bedford Travelog. (I hope the parking is still free on the weekends).

Mammalodon colliveri may have been a mud slurping bottom feeder (Brian Choo / Museum Victoria)

The evolutionary track of baleen whales has long been a mystery. It’s been theorized in the past that baleen - ridged plates that filter small creature from the water as whales swim - evolved after whales used their teeth for the same reason. But studies on a bizarre 25 million year old fossil from Australia suggest that baleen whales’ ancestors might have sucked ocean creatures from the muck on the ocean’s floor - a much simpler evolutionary link from teeth to baleen, say scientists.

Sea Shepherd Ship "Bob Barker"

A. It’s no longer a Secret, and
B. Yes, it’s named after Bob Barker (a million dollar donor to Sea Shepherd…The Price Was Right! (sorry)).

A blue whale, the largest animal that every lived (on earth)

But if you guessed that Global Warming might be one of the reasons, you guessed right…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography have been recording blue whale songs as far back as the 60’s, and

have found the tonal frequency of the songs has reduced by fractions of a Hertz every year. This has been true even though the songs differ in different oceans and the populations seem quite distinct from each other. In the most studied populations, those off California, the pitch has reduced by 31 percent during the period.

Possible reasons: noise pollution, new mating strategies, and changing blue whale demographics. But scientists remain unconvinced that any of these are truly the reason for the lower singing voices. It’s a mystery.

Read more about it here.

It Was Now Clear Sunrise by Matt Kish

The above drawing is for page 97. Check out all the “One Drawing For Every Page of Moby Dick” art here.

Female sperm whale with squid caught between her teeth (Tony Wu)

Photographer Tony Wu captured some extremely rare images off the Ogasawara Islands in Japan earlier this month. It’s believed the images chronicle adult female sperm whales teaching a baby how to dive for, and eat, giant squid.

The squid was caught far to deep for the photographer to snap pictures of the squid actually being caught, but Wu’s photos show the whales with squid still in their mouths at they return to the surface.

The squid was guessed to be up to 30 meters long.

These images were taken in the same area where Japanese scientists used baited hooks and cameras to capture live images of giant squid a few years back.

One scientist proposed this theory about the scene. “As echolocation is pivotal for sperm whales finding their prey, it is not out of the question that the females would release the dead squid at depth and let the calf echolocate and recognise it in the dark deep water, typically around 800 m deep.”

And no Japanese whale boats show up to kill anything.

More photos here.

Get me to antiques roadshow. Stat!

The newly discovered piece tells the story of an encounter with Indians in Tierra Del Fuego. A similar piece by the same scrimshander - Pte James Bute of the HMS Beagle - sold at auction for over 40,000 pounds as recently as last month. Only five other examples of Bute’s work, which chronicled one of history’s most important and momentous discovery expeditions, are known to exist.

Along with the scrimshaw, several letters from the original owner to Darwin himself were discovered.

And from the looks of this sneak preview, it’s every bit as f’d up as you’d hope it would be.