#sperm whale skeleton

[no-living-thing-within]

Mr. Sperm Whale & Friends.

[saranilssonbooks]

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

[iishmael]

Natural History Museum Paris.

Sperm whale skeletons, from the 19th century, different sizes. Distinguishable features are the head cavity for the ‘spermaceti’ oil and large teeth on the lower jaw.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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!)

[no-living-thing-within]

Sperm whale rib cage and spine.

[saranilssonbooks]

For the sake of recovering from a brutal jet lag, I headed to the natural history museum because no way I could fall asleep there. I must however have done just that, because whilst sipping afternoon tea in the cafeteria and looking out across the park, for a brief moment people were walking little white whales rather than dogs. Definately sleep deprivation, not insanity.

And yes, whales does in fact have legs, or at least remenants of their land livin' days ones.

[probably-an-alien]

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.

[vickyvicarious]

I decided to compare Ishmael's "Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton" to the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on sperm whales. I'm pretty sure his general proportions are good (as regards head taking up so much of the body, small fins, relative length of ribs, and so on), but there seems to be one notable exception.

Ishmael: "...according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons;"

EB: "Males attain a maximum length of about 24 metres (78.7 feet) and weigh up to 50 metric tons (55.1 tons). Females are smaller, usually measuring less than about 14 metres (45.9 feet) and weighing less than 25 metric tons (27.6 tons)."

If Moby Dick is supposed to be up on the high end of Ishmael's spectrum, he's definitely a big 'un.

[roseunspindle]

Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features. 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 - who can just keep talking about whales...and undressing whales...

[electricnik]

Sperm whale skeleton, Manchester museum.

[allexonspace]

can I get an infodump about a random topic

ANON I LOVE YOU

ok so really summarized version. The story of Moby dick is based on true events!!! During the 18/19 hundreds one of the main sources of income for coast town was whale hunting! An Nantucket was one of the places where this was pretty the main income. A whaling ship called The Essex set off for a (approximately) two year long voyage from Nantucket USA, to Africa all the way down to south America (they killed all the fucking whales up north so now they had to go south) during this voyage the ship was constantly hit by storms that wrecked it and made them lose three of their five boats, they got another really bad one while traveling though the coasts of Africa though, which they used when they found a whale to chase and kill it. Eventually they reach south America, on the western side, and once there they get FUCKING ATTACKED BY A SPERM WHALE, THIS HAD NEVER REALLY HAPPENED BEFORE, the whale causes the ship to sink and now the survivors had to get on the only three hunting boats and find somewhere they could safely land in. Now the issue comes when the captains second hand keeps insisting that all the nearby islands are full of cannibals, they were actually islands with English missionaries who had settled there decades ago there were no cannibals anywhere but yk racism, so they stay on the boats, and eventually there's no food left, and so in every ship, when someone died from exposure and starvation, they decided to resort to cannibalism. Eventually two of the boats get found, totalling only five people alive between those two boats. The third one was later found with only skeletons remaining. There were eight survivors, three crew members had actually deserted earlier. One in Ecuador before the ship got sunk and two others in an island after the ship sank, they got rescued soon after. that's a summary of cannibalism in the sea :333