Whales interesting facts

September 26, 2012 | In: Animal facts for kids, Nature Facts

Mystery – The Failure of Whales , Dozens of whales have been found buried in the desert!

Researchers from Chile and the Smithsonian Institute in the United States faced a dilemma: how, tens of whales could die in the same place in the Atacama Desert? For now, it remains an enigma.

More than 2 million years ago, dozens of whales have found their mysterious end on the Pacific coast of South America. Maybe they were confused and failed to shore. Maybe they were trapped in a lagoon by a landslide or a storm.

But how does it happened that they died side by side, a few feet away, buried on the ocean floor, that remains a mystery. They were led by currents to the place that now is the driest spot on the planet?

Nowadays, the whales have been discovered at top of a hill in the desert, where researchers have begun to unearth one of the best preserved graveyards of prehistoric whales. According to Chilean scientists and the Smithsonian Institute in the United States, whales were the size of a bus.

Experts say that other groups of prehistoric whales have been found together in Peru and Egypt, but the Chilean fossils stand out by their large number and the beautifully preserved bones.

Were discovered fossils of 75 whales and more than 20 of them have intact skeletons. This cemetery shows a picture of life, well preserved in time, there we can also observe a novelty: two adults and a baby whale.

22 whales died after they failed on a beach in Tasmania

25 whales, a species belonging to 24 other species Mink and sperm whales failed on a beach in the island of Tasmania. Although marine fauna and wildlife experts have done everything they could to save their state, 22 of them died. Australian authorities were able, however, to save only two minke whales and whale sperm whales.
Also, researchers who participated in whale rescue operation said that they would investigate why the whales failed on the Australian beach.

A Whale arrived in the middle of a field!

A whale failed in the middle of a field in the UK, located 700 meters away from the shore, at the present moment. It is a swampland, which was flooded by tides produced during the autumn equinox.

After the waters retreat 10 meters, the whale could not return to the sea and died. Probably a huge wave threw her in the swamp beyond the shore, when the tide retreated, the whale could not get back in the water. British zoologists and mammal experts have examined the body and confirmed that the whale is a Sei female.

The highest tides occur each year during the spring and autumn equinoxes. Sometimes the whales come into shallow water looking for food and then they get trapped. Sei whales strandings are extremely rare. There were only three cases of stranding of whales of this species over the past 20 years, in the rivers of the UK.

Scientists believe that whales failure on rivers in the UK can be explained by the changing marine currents in the Arctic waters. Experts do not know why only recently the number of whale strandings increased.