#bowhead whales

[pseudocurios]

stamps on whales. guinea-bissau, issued 1984.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[dougdimmadodo]

Bowhead Whale (Balaena mysticetus)

Family: Right Whale Family (Balaenidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Named for its extremely large, bow-shaped head (which can be used to smash through thin sea ice when surfacing to breathe), the Bowhead Whale can grow to be 15-18 meters (50-60ft) long, may weigh over 54,500 kg (120,000lbs) and is believed to have the potential to live for over 200 years (quite possibly the longest lifespan of any mammal.) Native to arctic and sub-arctic oceans, it feeds on plankton and other small invertebrates which it filters from the water using the comb-like baleen plates in its mouth; its extremely long baleen plates (around 4 meters/13ft in length, longer than those of any other whale) and enormous head (which makes up around 1/3rd of its total body length and features the largest mouth of any animal, opening to be around 3.7 meters/12ft high and 2.4 meters/8ft wide) make it one of the most efficient filter-feeders on earth, allowing an adult Bowhead Whale to consume around 2 tonnes of prey each day. In comparison to other whales Bowhead Whales are not particularly social and typically live alone or in small groups of 3-6 individuals, although during migration they may gather in larger numbers, and as they are not particularly aggressive towards other members of their species it is not unusual for several unassociated individuals to gather together in particularly plankton-rich areas when feeding. Bowhead Whales migrate south to relatively warm subarctic waters during the arctic winter to avoid becoming trapped beneath sea-ice that is too thick for them to break through, and while they may mate at any time of year they typically give birth while migrating back to the arctic in the spring, producing a single calf every 3-4 years after a gestation period of 13-14 months (with calves already being around 4 meters/13ft long and weighing over 900kg/2000lbs at birth.) The enormous size of this species means that it has only one natural predator (the Orca), but historically humans have hunted Bowheads extensively for their meat, bones, blubber and baleen. Commercial whaling once brought Bowhead Whales to the brink of extinction, but throughout the 1970s the practice of hunting this species was near-universally outlawed (with the only exceptions being made for two indigenous communities in Siberia and Alaska who hunt members of this species for subsistence on such a small scale that they do not have a significant negative impact on the species’ overall population.) As of the time of writing this, the IUCN believes that the numbers of several local populations of Bowhead Whales have stabilized and begun to recover from the damage done by commercial whaling, with the species’ overall global population numbers actively increasing.

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Animal Advent Calendar - Day 23

Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/74103-Balaena-mysticetus

[antiqueanimals]

The Child's Picture Scrap Book. Containing Upwards of Four Hundred Illustrations by John Gilbert, J. D. Watson, Wolf, Coleman, etc. 1865.

Internet Archive

[davidstanleytravel]

The bones of bowhead whales slaughtered during the 17th century by English whalers can still be found at Gåshamna (Konstantinovka) on Hornsund, South Svalbard, Norway.

[sparkylurkdragon]

‘Gay used to mean happy but queer used to mean weird, therefore queer is a Much Worse Word’ is starting to nip at the heels of ‘aces stole dragons from children’ for the title of Most Completely Baffling REG Take.

I think the Aces Stole Dragons one is still winning because it’s just so petty and since I am an ace dragon it just loops around to surreal and hilarious nonsense to me, but... haha, wow. Argument By Etymology is often pretty spurious in general and this is a particularly silly one.

I think it’s such a bizarre take to me because of a fundamental disconnect in overarching goals. I can see how it would be a compelling argument if the goal is to Be Normal. That... is not my goal.  I am not and will never be normal, and I have known this since I was very small. My reaction to “but it means weird!” is “yeah, it does; and?” 

I’m queer because, yeah, it is unusual, it is strange, it is weird. You know what else is unusual, strange, weird?

(Source) The titan aurm, a plant with a gigantic flower that blooms about once a year and smells of corpses.

(Source)

The opossum, North America’s only extant marsupial. Their body temperature is so low that they, unlike most mammals, are quite resistant to rabies infection.

(Source)

The tuatara, a reptile that is not a lizard and in fact the last remnant of a group of reptiles who diverged from lizards about 220 million years ago. They have a sensory organ on the top of their heads that amounts to a smaller third eye. 

(Source 1,  Source 2)

The pikas, a group of lagomorphs which dries grasses aboveground to make their own hay, which they use to get through the winter.

(Source)

The bowhead whale, which has a skull that looks Like That.

(Source)

The acacia tree, which has a symbiotic relationship with ants. Some acacias have ants which will attack giraffes trying to eat their leaves. (Source)

(Source) Arthrobotrys oligospora, a fungus that actively predates on nematodes by making ‘snares’ out of its hyphae.

(Source)

The European hedgehog, which grows a back full of bristly spines and becomes a round ball of pain when threatened.

I could go on.

Look at all these queer lifeforms. To a one they are unique, to a one they are strange, to a one they are real, exquisite beings that deserve to be recognised for the weird things they are.

How gay it is to be queer.

[ronk]

There are whales alive today that were born before Moby-Dick was written in 1851.  Bowhead whales can live over 200 years.

[mindblowingfactz]

There are whales alive today that were born before Moby Dick was written. Bowhead whales can live over 200 years, and Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851.