Abstract
A MODEL of a 93-ft. Blue whale has just been completed in the Whale Hall of the British Museum (Natural History). It is constructed of plaster of Paris and cement on a wood and wire-netting framework and weighs between six and seven tons. The proportions and colour are based on photographs and written descriptions and on very numerous measurements of actual specimens. Features of interest in the model are: the great size of the head, which is nearly a fifth of the total body length; the eye just behind the angle of the mouth, and the very small ear opening a little distance behind the eye; the tapering beautifully stream-lined flippers, and the enormous tail flukes some eighteen feet from tip to tip. The numerous grooves covering the throat and chest are a typical feature of the family Balaeno-pteridae to which this species belongs. The Blue whale, which grows to 100 ft., is the largest of all living animals and, so far as is known, the largest that has ever existed. At birth it is more than 24 ft. in length, and by its third year of life when it becomes sexually mature it is 74–77 ft. long. Its distribution is world wide, but at the present time the only remaining important area of concentration is in the Antarctic. There it is being hunted by the whalers for the oil obtained from blubber and flesh. During the 1936–37 antarctic whaling season, out of a total of 32,821 whales slaughtered, 14,183 were Blue whales.
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Life-size Model of a Blue Whale. Nature 142, 1110 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/1421110a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1421110a0