| Alaska Science Forum February 15, 2001 Bowhead Whales May Be the World's Oldest Mammals Article # 1529 by Ned Rozell This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute. While helping Alaska Native whale hunter Billy Adams cut sections of blubber from a bowhead whale, Biologist Craig George pressed his knife into a deep scar in the whale's skin. The knife made a crunching noise, so George cut deeper. Minutes later, he pulled out a sharp harpoon point the whale had been carrying for perhaps a century. Ten years earlier, whaling captain Fred Ahmaogak from Wainwright found an ivory harpoon tipped with a metal blade. As of early 2001, hunters have recovered six of these old harpoon points from bowhead whales. Along with new chemical evidence from the whales' eyes, the harpoon tips suggest that the bowhead may be the oldest living mammal on Earth. George, who works for the North Slope Borough in Barrow, has studied bowheads for 21 years. The whales grow to 60 feet, weigh one ton at birth, and can weigh more than 120,000 pounds as adults. Insulated by blubber more than one foot thick and shielded by heavy bones in their skulls used to break holes in sea ice, bowheads spend their entire lives in northern waters. | |
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