The oil from the bone marrow of a blue whale that died after being struck by a ship over two decades ago is so abundant that the museum had to install collection equipment.
When visiting the New Bedford Whaling Museum in southeastern Massachusetts, guests need to stand carefully beneath the 20-meter long skeleton of a blue whale. This is because the whale bones still leak oil, despite the animal having died more than twenty years ago. Known as The King of the Blue Ocean (Kobo), this rare blue whale skeleton has been displayed in the museum since 2000. The leakage phenomenon is a result of the whale’s bone marrow being filled with oil, significantly more than that found in human bones, according to Popular Science.
The skeleton of the blue whale nicknamed Kobo. (Photo: New Bedford Whaling Museum).
“The oil in the marrow is an energy source for whales. Especially for baleen whales, which often have a period of fasting during the year,” said Robert Rocha, deputy director of science and research at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. “There is energy stored in the muscle and fat, but the energy stored in the oil and bones is their reserve source.”
Typically, whale bones lose this oil through natural processes when they are buried on the ocean floor and consumed by marine organisms such as shipworms. However, Kobo was found at the ship’s bow. Despite being the largest animals on the planet, blue whales can still be accidentally struck by massive oil tankers.
According to Rocha, Kobo was likely only about 5 years old and weighed approximately 36,287 kg. It was accidentally killed by a 148-meter cargo ship while traveling from Belgium to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1998. Scientists towed the carcass ashore and dissected it for research. The collection team did not spend time extracting the oil from the skeleton but simply left it out in the sun for processing.
In 2010, the museum installed an oil collection device to examine how much oil they could gather. The device is located near the skull, jaw, and vertebrae. It collects dripping oil into a narrow-necked bottle every day, and the museum has gathered 1,000 ml stored in jars and 200 ml in the collection device.
The oil from such skeletons was not used for lighting during the whaling industry’s heyday in the 19th century. It wasn’t until whaling facilities and processing plants emerged that fishermen and soldiers could utilize the oil from the bones. This type of oil was also used in explosives because a byproduct of whale oil soap is glycerol. When glycerol is mixed with nitric and sulfuric acids, it produces nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin was used as propellant fuel for shells and rockets in World War I and II.
