Long Lived Whale

When indigenous Alaskan hunters killed a bowhead whale in 2007, they found lodged in it the point and fragments of an old harpoon. These were identified as “parts of an exploding lance made in New Bedford [Massachusetts, U.S.A.] in the late 1800s,” says The Boston Globe.

This type of lance soon became obsolete, which led historians at the New Bedford Whaling Museum to surmise that the whale was harpooned “sometime between 1885 and 1895.” It must thus have been at least 115 years old when it died. This find, says the Globe, provides “more evidence for [the] long-held belief that the bowhead whale is one of the longest living mammals on earth, surviving for up to 150 years.”

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