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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsCaution: Dead Whale Contents Under Pressure
Whales are some of the largest creatures ever to appear on Earth, so when they wash ashore after death it's no small task to remove the carcass. Because of the incredible size, the whale must be cut into smaller and more manageable pieces. The act of cutting it up poses yet another obstacle: dead whales can explode when punctured.
At the time of the whales death, it begins to decay. The internal organs and all of the food it consumed before dying begin to rot. As bacteria swoop in to decompose the animal, they generate heat and gasses that build tremendous pressure inside of the whale. When biologists cut into the whale to remove or study it, the gas comes exploding out and can bring blood and internal organs with it.
There are actually three gasses behind this phenomenon: methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. As you might imagine, this combination smells really, really bad. Methane is a by-product the gas that smells like rotting eggs. So, if you can imagine a whale-sized fart/cat pee/egg bomb with blood and entrails flying at your face, thats pretty much the full experience of an exploding whale.
Check out this amazing, and obviously graphic, footage of a whale exploding that originally appeared on Faroese Broadcasting Corporation. Good thing he was wearing a rain coat:
- See more at: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/caution-dead-whale-contents-under-pressure#sthash.9Vgm2Cy7.dpuf
Paulie
(8,462 posts)With no beans.
petronius
(26,602 posts)SkatmanRoth
(843 posts)krispos42
(49,445 posts)...letting the Oregon Department of Transportation deal with the dead whale. They have bulldozers and explosives, so, dammit, that's what they'd use!
They should have called in the Oregon Department of Napalm and Thermite.
jmowreader
(50,555 posts)The military is allowed to assist in times of domestic emergency, an A-10 could have blown the shit out of this thing without throwing one-ton whale parts all over the fucking place, and the Idaho Air National Guard has an A-10 squadron at Boise.
Kaleva
(36,294 posts)"There can be few experiences more disturbing than to visit the resting place of a loved one, and then find the corpse blasted all over the walls and the container in pieces." - See more at: http://www.metro.us/newyork/news/national/2013/07/08/exploding-caskets-tupperware-for-the-dead-blamed-for-freakish-phenomena/#sthash.h3DGxbAO.dpuf