Sam Dunford

I love science & nature, literature, art, & photography. Blue whales, snakes, and Giant Sequoias are a few of my obsessions. Writing Sci-Fi.

[Ben See @ClimateBen]

2.5/3°C global warming

1.  species extinct: 30-60%

2. fully expected by majority of scientists in 34-68 years without economic system change

3. scientists say there's no evidence humans can survive 2.5°C

4. many scientists say humans won't survive 3°C

Mass media?

SILENT 🧵

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Looks like I forgot to paste it, sorry. Here you go. Also has links to a video:

https://t.co/IWJZaL7X50

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews
A juvenile pygmy blue whale got stuck under a wharf in New Zealand a few days ago, conservationists pulled out some of the posts to let it out.

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews BOO!

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Killer whales don't like shallow water.

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

the set, though that seems unlikely, especially since there's a smooth distribution, the largest aren't outliers. Or maybe there's some other issue with the math that I wouldn't understand enough to catch. Or maybe, there really are 90< foot long ENP Blue Whales out there!

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews @CetologyH
https://t.co/2xjDcBts2H

Here's an interesting paper- Claims to have a new method for measuring live Blue Whales at sea, with a <4% margin of error, by taking the blowhole to dorsal fin length from photo sequences and extrapolating the total length. 1/

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

with using body proportions data from a different subspecies could have introduced problems. Maybe the reportedly 26+ meter individuals just had disproportionately large blowhole-dorsal fin length to total length ratios. Or maybe vagrant Antarctic Blue Whales got mixed into 5/

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews @Dawn_R_Barlow Does it have body width/silhouette like this?

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Not mutally exclusive.

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Poor whale, I hope it survived!

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Update: I read the paper, and the largest one was 24.32 meters. Unless an Antarctic Blue Whale got mixed into the set (and with the longer tail, I think the authors would have caught that), it seems we have a new record!

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Both are unusually large for Pygmy Blue Whales, and 23.4 meters is only 0.7 meters/2.3 feet short of the known record. It's possible that this individual is the longest one alive today!

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews @Dawn_R_Barlow Oh, this is HUGE! I've seen the rumor of a potential Blue/Humpback hybrid, but until this I could never find any photographic evidence of it!!

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews Wouldn't that apply to biomass, not number of individuals? One Blue Whale has the mass of dozens of Killers.

[Sam Dunford @SamuelDunford]

@bluewhalenews I'm getting a "Not found" error. Do you have a backup?