Nature

Some living whales still carry harpoon tips from the 1800s

Bowhead whales caught by Alaskan hunters have been found with fragments of explosive harpoon heads embedded in their blubber, a design that fell out of use around 1880 - meaning the whale had survived a hunt over a century earlier. Separate chemical ageing of eye tissue puts some individuals at 150 to over 200 years old, making bowheads the longest-lived mammal known.

Jeffrey C. George, Craig George, et al., Age and Growth Estimates of Bowhead Whales via Aspartic Acid Racemization — Canadian Journal of Zoology, 1999

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