New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts might be home to five telling whale skeleton in the closet , but the blue hulk in particular might forget its mark on you . Literally – its skeleton is dripping oil colour , and it has n’t bar doing that for over a poop of a century .
Theblue whalein question isKOBO , put up for King of the Blue Ocean , whose body was chance upon on the bow of a tanker back in March 1998 . It ’d been walk out and kill by the propellor of another tanker up in Novia Scotia , before being picked up by the ship it was found on and carried all the way into Narragansett Bay , Rhode Island .
After its discovery , KOBO ’s build was take out and the osseous tissue cleaned – a process which ask submerging them in New Bedford harbor for five month – and reassembled .
Don’t worry KOBO, we look a bit oily sometimes too.Image courtesy of New Bedford Whaling Museum
" They did a pretty undecomposed job of vex the bone clean , ” Bob Rocha , New Bedford Whaling Museum ’s Associate Curator of Science and Research , toldWBZ - TV . “ They did n’t get all the crude out though . "
petroleum ? That ’s right – whale are oily . So oily , in fact , that they weresought afterspecifically for it . Whale rock oil terminate up being used in all personal manner of unlike thing , include soap , lubricant , margarine , andeven explosivesat one point .
The oil is launch within a whale ’s pearl center and not only help it tomaintain airiness , but also act as a reserve push origin in lieu of blubber , Rocha explained toPopular Science .
People would’ve got a lot of money for this back in World War I.Image courtesy of New Bedford Whaling Museum
That would ’ve come in handy when KOBO was alert , but the result of not catch all of its vegetable oil out during cleaning is that the 20.02 - meter ( 66 - foot ) skeleton is still leaking oil 26 years after it was first found .
" I like the fact that that skeleton is sebaceous because it adds to a individual ’s experience number in , being able to smell the oil , get a horse sense of what it might have been like to be stuck on a whale ship for three year , " Rocha told WBZ - TV .
While we ’re all for an immersive experience , fossil oil drop onto the floor is n’t needs idealistic ; the museum has specify up a organisation that catches the oil and sends it into a flaskful , also to keep rails of how much crude is leaking .
Since that system was set up up , the flask have collected over a liter of oil and that number is likely to keep rising – the museum has estimated that KOBO will likely continue to seep out fossil oil as far in the future as 2060 .
That ’s bugger off nothing on thebowhead whaleskeleton at London ’s Natural History Museum though , which is still dripping oil 160 years after it was gather up .
So , if you ’re planning on touring the museum world ’s whale skeletons , peradventure do n’t wear your favorite jumper .
