#sperm whale skeleton

[saranilssonbooks]

Snapped this by mistake last week whilst at the museum and thought to myself "that reflection is probably something Ahab hallucinated seeing outside his window, lol". A few days later, I came down with tonsillitis and during a fever dream I had this image of him standing in his kitchen in the middle of the night, dressed in a night shirt, holding a half-eaten sandwich in his hand and staring out at a Moby Dick apparition. Maybe I'll doodle it some day.

[no-living-thing-within]

Mr. Sperm Whale & Friends.

[saranilssonbooks]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now that I have it hung please look at this unfuckingbelievably cool lamp my wife gave me for christmas

[eris-perish]

Finished my laptop wallpaper thought it was pretty cool

[saranilssonbooks]

An interpretation of the cetology chapters as a reflection of Ishmael's trauma is something that has only quite recently begun to circulate and also something that makes me thrilled every time I see it brought up. So very much can indeed be learned about Ishmael's character from those chapters, both his further biography beyond the Pequod as well as his personality in general and his mental state.

In the chapter The Advocate, he, in all his sarcastic glory, remarks that his whale book manuscript will probably be found in a drawer by his debtors, hinting that what he is writing is not intended to be published during his life time. To think of Ishmael's writing then as diary style is smack on, or so I dare argue. The relative privacy it grants him opens up the possibility for a more personal, more informal and rambling structure (or lack thereof) and style.

To drag things out by derailing off on irrelevant and lengthy tangents as well as suddenly distancing himself from the scene he describes by changing perspective is a recurring phenomenon throughout the book. As mentioned earlier, it has in these our modern day come to be viewed as symptoms of PTSD and, possibly, reconstructed memories. As difficult as it is for Ishmael to tell his story, he must tell it. His natural medium for doing so is writing and aiming his text to a future reader whom he shall never meet but nevertheless respects and thus he allows himself to be as vulnerable and personal as needs. Maybe this is part of why so many Moby-Dick readers find a friend in Ishmael, not merely a favorite character.

Also, greetings from myself, my mascot, and my skeletal BFF.

Trying out new art styles. Whale skeletons are very cool :) And of course it wouldn’t be complete without the usage of the colour green for no reason in particular (Spoilers: I think I like the colour green).

Thoughts on Moby Dick for today: A bit of the cetology chapters and a bit of Ishmael! Because… Whale.

We all know there’s copious amounts of whale anatomy lessons in Moby Dick, some of which are true and some are more outdated. This is usually the least favourite part of the book for many people, and understandably so. It can be annoying for those who only read for the story and probably even more annoying for people who are actually interested or knowledgeable on the modern topic of cetaceans (or marine biology in general I mean like Ishmael called a seal (or was it a walrus? I forgot) an amphibian I don’t think I have to elaborate).

But I’ve always thought the way Ishmael narrates the story, even though it’s through a book, is as if you were actually there sitting in front of him while he tells you the tale. Like listening to an actual sailor ramble about the ocean. Like a one-sided conversation, you could say. It just gives those vibes. That feeling of a naturally flowing conversation was actually what kept me really interested in the book because even though he barely talks about himself you can feel a kind of connection to Ishmael.

So if we were to treat it like him actually telling you all of this in one sitting on the spot I thought wouldn’t it make sense for him to want to avoid the worst parts of the story? So he drags it out before getting to the sad part. Or alternatively, the more logical explanation is the fact it’s a sailor telling a story about the sea to a land dweller so of course he would want to give them quick context notes. And especially considering the time this book was first published many people were unaware about even the basic facts of a whale.

Because among the many reasons Melville wrote Moby Dick was to educate people on the wonders of whales. And he succeeded! …Partially. He might not be the one we should give all of our credit to for the research of whales but at the very least he sparked a kind of curiosity in the common people back in the day. Sure it’s outdated but he tried his best and I think that’s very cool :) shout out to Herman Melville for that.

Oh oh wait! I just thought of something. We can also view it as Ishmael writing a personal diary instead of being an actual book to publish to many. That works well too, and gives him more reason to want to drag out the tale. He’s not just writing about their death and demise he’s writing about their lives to remember as well. A diary.

But on a different note, since I think that whole previous subject is already commonly thought about enough by Moby Dick readers;

Whale skeletons like I mentioned before are very cool too. But at the same time they kinda freak me out. Cause it looks like both a fish and a mammal at the same time. The skull especially reminds me of I think horses or other medium sized quadrupedal herbivores?? And the fingers are freaky too. The fingers are the freakiest. I’m sure if you showed them to someone who has never seen a whale skeleton they’d be very confused or scared. Maybe both.

But it really is curious to see the remnants of their land dwelling days through their bones!

[saritawolff]

Patreon request for rome.and.stuff (Instagram), and my first plesiosaur (well, first since I was like… 10)

Pliosaurus funkei!

Pliosaurs were a family of plesiosaurs that eventually lost their stereotypical long-necked, small-headed body plan. Resembling the mosasaurs that would come much later, pliosaurs had short necks with large, strong jaws, and fed on fish, cephalopods, and marine reptiles. The type genus, Pliosaurus, contains at least 6 species. The first and type species, P. brachydeirus, was described and named by Sir Richard Owen in 1841.

Between 2004 and 2012, a new species of Pliosaurus was in the process of being uncovered. Before it was formally described or even named, news of this giant sea monster escaped into the general media and it was dubbed “Predator X”.

This Predator X prompted a media frenzy… there were articles estimating its size based on the fragments found so far, a 2009 television special on the History channel, and a segment in the 2011 BBC documentary series “Planet Dinosaur.”

Predator X was reportedly the “most fearsome animal ever to swim in the oceans!”

When Pliosaurus funkei was finally formally described and named in 2012, it was found to be a bit smaller than the giant 15 meter long estimate being thrown around. However, it was still a very large animal, around 10–12 m (33–39 ft) long with a 2.0–2.5 m (6.6–8.2 ft) long skull. It also had very long flippers, probably to aid in maneuverability and speed. Analysis of Pliosaurus funkei’s skeleton show that it likely used its front flippers to cruise, only using its back flippers for quick bursts of speed when pursuing prey. Analysis of its brain case shows that its brain was proportional to that of a modern great white shark. So while it didn’t quite beat the Late Cretaceous 12–15.8 meter (39–52 ft) long mosasaur Tylosaurus, the Early Miocene to Late Pliocene 10.5-20.3 meter (34-67 ft) long shark Otodus megalodon, or even the modern day 11-16 meter (36-52 ft) long Physeter macrocephalus (Sperm Whale), it was still no doubt the apex predator of its time and environment.

Pliosaurus funkei lived in the last era of the Late Jurassic in the icy waters of Norway. Found in the Slottsmøya Member of the Agardhfjellet Formation, it would have lived in a cold, shallow sea rife with methane seeps. These methane seeps supported a high amount of diversity, and the Slottsmøya was teeming with ammonites, bivalves, gastropods, brachiopods, tubeworms, echinoderms, cold water sponges, and more. Many icthyosaurs and plesiosaurs would have enjoyed feeding on the plentiful invertebrates here, as well as each other. Pliosaurus funkei would have likely fed on other plesiosaurs like Colymbosaurus, Djupedalia, Ophthalmothule, and Spitrasaurus, as well as icthyosaurs like Cryopterygius, Undorosaurus, Arthropterygius, Nannopterygius, and Brachypterygius.

[saranilssonbooks]

My BFF says hello, @probably-an-alien ! Coincidentally, I had some business at the museum of natural history in Gothenburg today. 😉

[no-living-thing-within]

Sperm whale rib cage and spine.

[saranilssonbooks]

"I saw no living thing within, naught was there but bones."

dead whale temple sun weaver passage ilu

[pacificremains]

Visited the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, OR. Very cool skeletons! Just a few here: northern elephant seal, orca skull, harbor porpoise, and baby sperm whale. And they had cool stuff about technologies that create electricity from waves! The best part was they identified the stakeholders and the possible downsides to each. Super cool.

[saints-who-never-existed]

"In Moby Dick, Ishmael tells of seeing the skeleton of a sperm whale assembled in a grove of palm trees on a South Pacific island. "How vain and foolish," He says, "for timid untraveled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton... Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out."

But, as the survivors of the Essex came to know, once the end has been reached and all hope, passion, and force of will have been expended, the bones may be all that are left.

- In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick.

[sol-consort]

Do you think Hanar would find audio CDs of underwater activity comforting? Like those ASMR videos to help someone sleep.

The sounds of undercurrents, the breaking of glacial ice, or the echos of sperm whales. Although considering sperm whale's diets that last bit would be terrifying, imagine alien sperm whales?

I like to think Hanar would enjoy the sounds of underwater heat vents akin to the geysers in Yellowstone.

You're right it would sound comforting to them, as relaxing as forest ambience sounds to us. Nature soothes us, slows our heartbeat, the noises of a calm breezy forest calms the mind.

So for the hanar, it would require to be set in the empty bare ocean as well, otherwise if it's too close to the hanar's structures, all that you'll hear is the whirl of machinery underwater.

In fact, since they communicate with bioluminescent lights and only adapted vocal communication for our sake, the visuals of the ocean might calm them more, acting as both the sound and image.

It's funny. A lot of the sounds we associate with the Earth's oceans won't be present in the Hanar ocean asmr.

No land means no birds, no seagull sounds as they soar above the water.

No ocean waves crashing onto the shore and seeping into the sand.

No moon means no high/low tides, the ocean remaining eerily calm.

No fresh water species either.

Definitely more underwater vents and volcanos. I wonder if it's as magnetic to the hanar as lava is to us. With no fire to invent underwater, they've had to use those thermal vents and magma hollows to power their machinery.

God do humans adore the sound and visuals of a small fire. Be it a campfire or a fireplace, something about the mesmerising view of the flames dancing around, the low rumbling of the fire, the occasional snap that fizzles out quickly. It's primal beauty.

Thermal vents and magma must hold a similary fond place in the hanar's primal memory.

The biggest difference would be our contrasting views of the ocean storms. To the hanar, it poses no danger since they can simply go under the water. Even if they surface, What danger is there? They can't drown.

To the hanar, the entirety of the Odyssey is someone taking a game of "the floor is lava" very seriously.

The most terrifying thunder crackling storms would be as soothing as a lullaby to them.

Not that I think about it. The most alien sounding noise to a hanar must he the chirping of a bird. Do they enjoy the cooing of the Citadel pigeons? Is it magical or unnerving?

I don't think any kind of whales or dolphins would exist in the hanar planet since it's fully covered in water, and those animals are mammals. They evolved back into aquatic, eventually, yeah, but there had to be a surface first for them to adapt to.

So maybe a whale equivalent that never evolved to walk on land for a short while? which... just might be more terrifying. The idea alone of whatever the hell the hanar consider to be their apex predetor is terrifying.

Most animals don't hunt humans naturally.

"Naturally" is the keyword here. They'll hunt humans under special conditions, like starvation or human settlements expanding into their territory. Even then, it's more of "let's kill this bitch" than "oh man I'm craving some human nuggets rn"

In a normal stable ecosystem, we're not on the menu.

Because most animals don't see humans as viable prey. Sure, they'll defend themselves if we cross to their territory, or if we're standing in front of something they want, but in general, they don't do the whole stalking prey dance and song with us. We're simply not worth it, even to sharks.

Maybe it's a similar thing to the hanar? Keep in mind that they're much larger than Earth's jellyfish and that they do have a skeleton, unlike our jellyfish. They have a skull, at least. For their tentacles, they're probably closer to that of an octopus than a jellyfish.

They can withstand immense pressure, they can move extremely fast underwater, and they use their tentacles to choke prey. Most aquatic predators lurch forward, an abrupt movement that snatches their prey, otherwise moving relatively slow. While the hanar seem to have the ability to zoom around underwater 24/7 extremely slippery and deadly.

What animal would see them as prey? What's their equivalent of a starving animal that will settle for anything, even those boney sour tasting humans?

The deep sea ones.

Cold temperatures as the sun fails to penetrate the water? check.

Low oxygen? Check.

Scarce food? Check.

Crushing depth? Check.

Overwhelming darkness? Check.

It has a lot in common with freezing hell that are Earth's poles.

Certian animals there eat once a year, mostly on gaint whalefalls. When a corpse sinks down, not a single part of it remains. Even the bones are eaten by animals that adapted them into their diet.

To them, a hanar must seem like a feast, skull included.

But, any evolved society must cross the barrier of the natural order to be able to expand into civilisation. Much like the animals that possess the biggest threat on humans today aren't those deadly tigers or larger than life killer whales but mosquitoes.

And look at us now, making plushies of said tigers and whales.

Once upon a time, sure, the hanar must have resembled the side dish in some species' 6 course meal (cough protheans cough) But as it currently stands? Even bare without weapons underwater, they seem immensely capable of winning in a fight against a sperm whale equivalent.

But nurture plays a big role here. This isn't the ancient times when we roamed around in the jungle with a spear and a lioncloth. A human can win in a fight against a cat very easily, yet most humans today would just run away if a cat hisses at them or gives a nasty scratch.

We've escaped the natural order, fight or flight is a thing of the past that most humans won't experience more than once or twice in their life, unless they're into fighting sports, I guess.

And those are the same animal loving hanar who just abhor the idea of any harming coming to any non-sentient creature. Zero of them would want to sqaure up with a sperm whale... for the sperm whale's sake.

[leonsleftbicep]

So. In that case:

You see my vision? 🦞

this is fucked

ROCK LOBSTER!!!

(warning for gore?? not really its like skeleton but red)

no skin?

im sorry i had to 😂

edit:

ALSO ADDING THIS. III lobster can be eaten physically. WHICH MEANS VORE IS CANNON IN THE OCEAN AU. THIS ALSO ALL IMPLIES THAT THERE IS A ALTERNATE REALITY WHERE SLEEP TOKEN ARE SEA CREATURES…. sleep is a sperm whale, no i will not elaborate unless asked

[iwhoneverbelievedinwar]

Ok ok so I'm on Chapter 102 of Moby Dick (holy fuck?!) and I have... thoughts.

But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton.

Ishmael? Ishmael??? Was it necessary to make that description so... homoerotic? Casting the whale as a man he's undressing? Not complaining just impressed honestly.

I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub?

Augh. The intimacy of it. Ishmael isn't just dissecting the whale, he's reading it. It's easy to imagine him over that whale cub, learning its innermost secrets, elbow-deep in a body. The violence of understanding. The eroticism of it. Do you Get Me. He's fascinated by the whale, he's had the chance to open up a myth and put his hand into the wound like Thomas. Augh.

The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it.

obsessed with Ishmael finding divinity in everything. i wish I could see the world through his eyes

Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.

Even the gods are gay in this book

[wjbs-aus]

Pokémon pseudolegendary concepts for each type (more specifically the third stages; also, assume they all have a secondary type)

Normal - big, scary anthropomorphic wolf thing.

Fire - gigantic magma-dragon.

Water - sperm whale; the shiny is white, obviously.

Grass - big ent-thing.

Electric - living stormcloud in a roughly-humanoid form.

Rock - a god-damn therizinosaurus!

Ground - sandworm.

Ghost - Gashadokuro-like giant skeleton thing; the first stage is just a skull.

Ice - anthropomorphic woolly mammoth.

Steel - giant mecha.

Bug - gigantic spider.

Dark - big demon dude.

Fighting - King Kong-inspired giant gorilla, with a close ecological relationship to Tyranitar.

Fairy - humanoid thing that has a vague "fairytale giant" motif.

Psychic - weird flying jellyfish creature, kinda like Dogora.

Flying - roc-like giant bird-of-prey.

Poison - komodo dragon kaiju thing.

Dragon - long eastern-style dragon that evolves from two lizards, kinda like a reverse Dragonite.

(if you draw any of these, tag me in the post so I can see them!)

[saranilssonbooks]

If I get the opportunity, I will so go there! 😍

I was at the Ozeaneum in Stralsund yesterday and I think Ishmael would have loved this

yep, that's a real sperm whale skeleton

and this is one of the multiple life-sized whale models

The museum has so many aquariums too, some of them truly ginormous. It's one of the best museums I know.