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Blue whale skeleton at New Bedford museum still oozing oil

(www.wpri.com)
201 points geox | 5 comments | 17 Oct 24 23:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.811s | source
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firefoxd ◴[19 Oct 24 15:41 UTC] No.41888432[source]▶
You have to see those whales skeletons in person to understand their sheer size. And if you want to know more than you need to about whales, pick up a copy of Moby Dick. Don't be intimidated by the size. I still can't believe this book was written in the 1800s. Catching a whale was akin to striking oil.
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gurjeet ◴[19 Oct 24 15:48 UTC] No.41888488[source]▶
> to understand their sheer size

In the linked article, towards the middle, the photo shows 2 people reading the plaque next to a pink structure, which appears to be that of a whale's heart. That, combined with the skeleton hanging over them, should give us an idea that we are no bigger to these whales, than probably an average snail is to us (between 5 cm and 9 cm).

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1. dmd ◴[19 Oct 24 17:41 UTC] No.41889264[source]▶
The average snail is 2-5 cm, not 5-9 cm. Just sayin.
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2. ygra ◴[19 Oct 24 17:55 UTC] No.41889364[source]▶
Perhaps they meant slugs. In German at least, both are called Schnecken (just one is naked), so perhaps that persists in other languages as well.
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3. card_zero ◴[19 Oct 24 18:05 UTC] No.41889436[source]▶
I'm guessing much, much smaller than that, taking microsnails into account.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-the-worlds-tinie...

But let me just add up their lengths, along with the lengths of all giant african land snails and all other snails, and divide by the total number of snails in the world ... is there a statistical trick that could answer this, like the one for counting undiscovered species? Probably not.

4. mkl ◴[19 Oct 24 23:50 UTC] No.41891744[source]▶
I think it's more likely different species in different places. I, in NZ, don't think I've ever seen a slug as much as 5cm long, let alone 9cm.
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5. amanaplanacanal ◴[20 Oct 24 13:51 UTC] No.41895359{3}[source]▶
Look up banana slug. Common where I live.