"All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever present perils of life."
--Herman Melville
BOSTON — A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago.
Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2 -inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated at 115 to 130 years old.
"No other finding has been this precise," said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Calculating a whale's age can be difficult and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses. It's rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.
The bomb lance fragment, lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was probably manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time....
Link: Whale caught in May was hunted in 1890 - Los Angeles Times.
Wit found this at the L.A. Times, then thought "I bet Professor Hex alrready has this." I clicked over and he did. Hi Professor Hex.
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