Four or five hundred years old is fantastic.
This is a message from 2007:
How long the life span of whales is still inconclusive. However, according to the Associated Press 13, in May this year, whalers caught a bowhead whale off the coast of Alaska and found an arrow-shaped shrapnel on its neck. After studying the shrapnel, the experts concluded that the whale was over 100 years old.
Centenary whale
This bowhead whale is male, with a body length of about 15 meters and a weight of 45 tons. In May, the whale was shot and died immediately. When the whaler cut the whale's body with a chain saw, he found an arrow-shaped shrapnel deeply embedded in the thick grease layer of its neck. According to the age of shrapnel, experts speculate that the whale is between 1 15 and 130 years old.
After the whaling ship found the shrapnel, it specially invited the wildlife biologist Craig George to check it out. George said, "It's really rare to find something so old on a whale. At that time, when I saw the shape of shrapnel, I was sure that this thing had a long history. "
However, George added: "No one knows how long whales will live. It's just speculation that bowhead whales can live that long. This whale may be 130 years old and was born in 1877. It is hard to imagine that it will experience more than a century of changes in the times. "
According to reports, shrapnel will soon be sent to a museum in Barrow, Alaska for people to visit.
Research speculation
Usually, experts estimate the age of whales by studying their lenses. This method is difficult to realize. It is much easier to calculate the age of whales by shrapnel in their bodies than by traditional methods. In previous studies, whales over 100 years old were extremely rare. But experts say that the oldest whale may be close to 200 years old.
John balkis Tang, a staff member of the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, said: "The previous methods of studying whale age were not as accurate as this one."
According to Buckstone, the arrow-shaped shrapnel in the bowhead whale is the bullet fragment of an explosive whaling gun. This kind of whaling gun is a traditional whaling tool for Alaskan Eskimos. It is estimated that it was produced in New Bedford around 1880, which was an important whaling center at that time.
Buckstone said that this small metal shrapnel was filled with explosives, and the explosion time was set to explode immediately after it was shot into the whale. It can be seen that the whalers at that time planned to kill the whale on the spot in case it waited for an opportunity to escape.
Buckstone said: "At that time, the whale was probably injured, but it survived because it didn't hurt the fatal part." "If it lives another 65,438+000 years, it won't feel uncomfortable anymore."
Whaling tradition
Buckstone said that it was a common practice for Alaskan whalers in the19th century to slot the top of the arrow. They shot the whale with such an arrow to show that it was theirs.
Many Alaskans have long been eating whales. After the whale is captured, the villagers in the nearby village will get a whale meat. However, the International Whaling Commission has banned Alaskans from whaling for commercial purposes and only allowed local people to catch a specified number of whales. Recently, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission adjusted the number of whales, allowing 10 Alaska villages to catch 255 whales in five years.
Eskimos have a saying that bowhead whales live longer than two people. George said: "This is just their traditional view. The life span of whales is still inconclusive. We are still studying. "
The oldest whale mentioned above is only close to 200 years old, as for four or five hundred years old. ..........
However, the life span of whales has not been accurately determined so far, and the life span of each whale may be different.
4~50 years old is a common life span of whales. Few whales are over 100 years old.