Sea monsters in the stranger world

Sea monsters in the stranger world pic

Whale exploded in taiwanese

Passers-by and cars were soaked in blood and body parts were sprayed over a road after the bursting of the whale, which was being carried on a trailer.

The whale had died earlier on a beach and had been collected so its remains could be used for educational purposes.

A marine biologist blamed the explosion on pressure from gases building up in the mammal as it began to decompose.


The More.. whale attracted a lot of onlookers both before and after it exploded.

This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful

Tainan resident
Several parked cars and pedestrians got covered in blood when it exploded.

Residents and shop owners wore masks while trying to clean up the spilt blood and entrails.

"What a stinking mess. This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful," said one resident.

Professor Wang Chien-ping, of the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, had ordered the whale to be moved to the Shi-Tsao Natural Preserve after his own institution refused to allow a post-mortem examination on its own premises.

Record find

He said that the animal had been close to death when it was found on a beach and had died by the time help arrived.

"Because of the natural decomposing process, a lot of gases accumulated, and when the pressure build-up was too great, the whale's belly exploded."

However, he said despite the explosion, enough of the whale remained to allow for an examination by marine biologists.

Professor Wang said initial observation showed the whale to be an older bull and that its weight of 50 tonnes and 17 metre-length made it the largest whale ever recorded in Taiwan.

Reports say because of the whale's size, it took 13 hours, three large lifting cranes and 50 workers to get the mammal loaded on the trailer truck for its final trip.

Whale Shark Rhincodon Worlds Biggest Fish

The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow moving filter feeding shark that is the largest living fish species. It can grow up to 12.2 m. (40 ft.) in length and can weigh up to 13.6 tonnes (15 short tons). . The shark is found in tropical and warm oceans and lives in the open sea and can live for about 70 years. The species is believed to have originated about 60 million years ago.



This distinctively-marked shark is the only member of its genus Rhincodon and its family, Rhincodontidae (called Rhinodontes before 1984), which is grouped into the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes.



The species was first identified in April 1828 following the harpooning of a 4.6-metre (15.1 ft) specimen in Table Bay, South Africa. It was described the following year by Andrew Smith, a military doctor associated with British troops stationed in Cape Town. He proceeded to publish a more detailed description of the species in 1849. The name "whale shark" comes from the fish's physiology; that is, a shark as large as a whale that shares a similar filter feeder eating mode. Known as a deity in a Vietnamese religion, the whale shark is called "Ca Ong", which literally translates as "Sir Fish".



In Mexico, and throughout much of Latin America, the whale shark is known as "pez dama" or "domino" for its patterns of spots. Whales sharks go by the name of "Sapodilla Tom" in Belize due to the regularity of sightings near the Sapodilla Cayes on the Belize Barrier Reef. In Africa, the names for the whale shark are very evocative: "Papa Shillingi" in Kenya came about as it is believed that God threw shillings upon the shark which are now its spots, and in Madagascar whale sharks are known locally as "Marokintana" which means "Many stars". In Indonesia, Javanese also called this species referring to star as "geger lintang" which has meaning "stars in the back".



The whale shark is a filter feeder — one of only three known filter feeding shark species (along with the basking shark and the megamouth shark). It feeds on phytoplankton, macro-algae, plankton, krill and small nektonic life, such as small squid or vertebrates. The many rows of teeth play no role in feeding; in fact, they are reduced in size in the whale shark. Instead, the shark sucks in a mouthful of water, closes its mouth and expels the water through its gills.



During the slight delay between closing the mouth and opening the gill flaps, plankton is trapped against the dermal denticles which line its gill plates and pharynx. This fine sieve-like apparatus, which is a unique modification of the gill rakers, prevents the passage of anything but fluid out through the gills (anything above 2 to 3 mm in diameter is trapped). Any material caught in the filter between the gill bars is swallowed.Whale sharks have been observed "coughing" and it is presumed that this is a method of clearing a build up of food particles in the gill rakers.



Whale sharks congregate at reefs off the Belizean Caribbean coast, supplementing their ordinary diet by feeding on the spawn of giant cubera snappers, which spawn in these waters between the full and new moons of March through September.

whale dies at harbor

The body of a humpback whale is seen being lifted out of the sea near a harbor in Australia, Aug. 2, 2007. This 12-meter-long, 15-ton humpback whale was forced into the harbor by a storm three days ago.