Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Dead whales: more dangerous than you might think

I'm not talking about live whales. I'm not talking about great white whales. I'm not even talking about zombie whales. (Zombie whales probably wouldn't be that dangerous anyway - I mean, what are they going to do? "I will filter feed on your braaaaaains..."? But I digress.)

No, I'm talking about the under-appreciated, and extremely gross dangers of dead whales. Take, for example, this striking (and extremely gross) video of a man cutting open a dead whale (which is, in case I haven't mentioned this, absolutely disgusting and not for the weak of stomach):



That's right, dead whales can actually explode. (There's a quick discussion of the science behind it right here.) Sometimes, though...

Sometimes they get a little help. Or a lot of help. With... um... with dynamite.



I suppose you could consider that a Cautionary Tale... or maybe just a cautionary tail.

2 comments:

  1. For the record, while most whales in their weight class are filter feeders, sperm whales aren't. These are the things that eat giant squid.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I was deliberately ignoring all the whales that aren't filter-feeders. And the terrifying potential of zombie dolphins.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to leave comments; it lets me know that people are actually reading my blog. Interesting tangents and topic drift just add flavor. Linking to your own stuff is fine, as long as it's at least loosely relevant. Be civil, and have fun!