Rare Whales Can Live to Nearly 200, Eye Tissue Reveals
Scientists have looked into the eyes of rare bowhead whales and learned that some of them can outlive humans by generations—with at least one male pushing 200 years old.
"About 5 percent of the population is over a hundred years old and in some cases 160 to 180 years old," said Jeffrey Bada, a marine chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.
A bowhead whale, also known as a Greenland right whale, pokes its head above the water in the Nunavut territory of Canada.
"They are truly aged animals, perhaps the most aged animals on Earth," he continued.
Bowheads, also known as Greenland right whales, are baleen whales, meaning that instead of teeth they have bonelike plates that they use to strain food from gulps of water.
The whales live in the Arctic (virtual world: Arctic interactive feature). Adults can reach 60 feet (18 meters) long and weigh more than a hundred tons (89 metric tons).
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