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Bowhead Whales May Live 200 Years

Posted by jamie on from the but-their-corpses-are-so-useful dept.

kilroy2000 writes "This is off-topic from the usual Slashdot fare, but some readers may find it interesting. A Science News article describes how it was discovered that bowhead whales can live to be 200 years old." It looks solid because there were several independent means of measuring the age, including one test done blind. Researchers first got interested by noticing 100-year-old harpoon points still stuck in the 50-ton creatures. I wonder if they hold grudges.

1 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Thar she blows! Har! by Vuarnet · · Score: 4

    I wonder what it would be like if we ever translated the whale songs into something we could understand. Hmm...

    - Hmpf. Kids today. Always swimming around, playing with those humans in their pesky boats, always getting catched and eaten. In my days we weren't harpooned by modern equipment. No, sir! We were hunted by lone men, armed with wooden spears with flint points. Here, check them on my back, I've still have a few lodged somewhere. And we wouldn't even swim away! No, we crawled up into the ice and fought hand-to-fin with them! Why I remember that summer of '88... 1888, that is... uh... what was the subject again?

    --
    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
    Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.