#grey whale

[inatungulates]

Grey whale Eschrichtius robustus

Observed by susannespider, CC BY-NC-ND

[pangeen]

“ Perfect Harmony “ // © Mike Coots

Original Audio

[cosmonautroger]

Piotr Kowalski, Grey Whale

[namu-the-orca]

Big Bearded Beasts

In other words: new baleen whale friends! These were for Pappyr, an Icelandic company that sells posters and postcards. They are currently working on a new poster showing Icelandic cetaceans (I've seen the preview, it's super sweet!) with my illustrations on it. Most I had ready to go, but a couple had to be made anew.

Amongst which these three ladies. Blue whales I've illustrated a bunch now, but the ones I've had were too small for this poster. So finally an illustration made at a large size (7000px) befitting the largest animal to ever have lived. Every time I work on them I discover something new to change compared to the last version!

Bowhead whales I feel I still haven't sussed out. There are so few good photos of them that actually show overall body proportions, and their faces seem different every time. They're fascinating animals though and I hope this one does them enough justice. They are probably the longest living mammal, reaching upwards of 200 years of age!!

The Gray whale is by far my favourite of this bunch. Last I illustrated them was over 10 years ago, in 2012. While I was still fond of the old illustration, working on this new one made me realise how much could be improved. They've such beautiful, unique faces, and painting all those spots and scratches that mark their skin (in part natural colouration, but mostly scars from barnacles and other hitchhikers) was a lot of fun. Gray whales too are record holders, making the longest migration of any mammal. Their yearly round trips between the Arctic feeding grounds and calving grounds off Baja California are good for 16,000 - 22,500 kms.

[schleichoftheday]

Today's Schleich is:

16082 Grey Whale [2001 - 2011]

[weergang]

https://www.newsweek.com/whale-missing-200-years-suddenly-spotted-ocean-1876104

Grey whale back in the Atlantic !!

[graveyardrabbit]

grey whale sculpture at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History

bonus mushrooms growing by her:

[dragons-wine]

[addturnip]

The book I’ve been reading on the Soviet whaling industry has a lot of interesting insights.

And heartbreak. The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. The authorities carefully altered documents and fudged numbers to hide the true scale of their operation.

Between 1946 and 1986, they reported killing a total of 2,710 humpback whales. In reality, they slaughtered over 13,000 in 1959 alone. In total, Soviet whalers secretly killed around 180,000 more whales than officially reported.

Whales were killed so quickly that the bodies rotted before they could be processed, many thrown back into the sea.

Why did the Soviets hunt so many whales? No reason in particular. The USSR had no use for whale meat, and precious little for blubber, hydrogenating small amounts as marjoram.

As it turned out, Soviet economic planners had been setting whaling quotas based on historic whaling as a percentage of the fisheries industry, regardless of any actual usefulness.

Soviet scientists petitioned the fisheries minister, saying their grandchildren would live in a world without whales, they were told “your grandchildren aren’t the ones who can remove me from my job.”

The book itself is full of colorful whalers and scientists, and a wonderful blend of commentary on how, as it did in so many things, the heartfelt USSR set out to do things better than the capitalists, and may have done worse.

“Red Leviathan” by Ryan Tucker Jones

[inatungulates]

Grey whale Eschrichtius robustus

Observed by redgros, CC BY-NC

[cupcakesaresocool]

Grey Whale, Magdalena Bay, Baja, Mexico

[havingawhaleovatime]

[coyotegirl-toebeans]

February 26, 2023 8:35 AM

[scrmnviking]

I love that they went with baleen because that's so rare, but I hate that it's a sperm whale because those are toothed.

I suspect the conversation went something like this:

Client: Love it! He's so happy! But the teeth.

Client's sycophant aka our salesperson: Yeah, the teeth. Hmm.

Artist: Well, you said sperm whale, ee could try...

C: What about some of those comb things.

CS: Yes. Combs. Great idea!

C: The missus and I went whale watching and they ate those tiny shrimp with combs. Amazing to watch. Gentle giants.

CS: So gentle. MUCH better than aggressive TEETH *pointed look*

A: You mean, baleen and krill?

C: Yes, that's the stuff! Baleen! Not the krill thing. Pfft. Only one type of comb.

CS: Pfft. Everyone knows that.

A: So, you want a baleen whale like a blue or grey or humpback?

C: No no. No hunchbacks, that's so much worse.

CS: No no no.

C: He's already blue. I like that. Never said a word about the color.

CS: Not a word! *look*

A: Soooo, same whale, just with baleen?

C: Yes! Now you get it!

CS: Finally!

A: *looks at fan brush, then at clock, then at stack of other boards to finish* Okay. *pulls CS aside* Get a revision charge out of him. I'll have it in 5.

CS: *to C* Let's talk distribution. Over martinis?

Upon leaving

C: Hunchbacks. Where do these guys come from?

CS: Right? Now, about Europe...

[sesamenom]

Family Tree Version 3, now featuring dwarves, hobbits, and the intricacies of however ainur are related!

Double lines on each side of a line break are used where lines overlap (---ll | ll---). Dashed lines indicate unknown numbers of generations, and dotted lines are for adoption. Grey text is used for alternative/old draft versions and assumed relationships (such as sticking oropher in with the sons of galadhon, or putting one of the dunedain as the tooks' fairy ancestor).

Version 2 here