Animals, alive and dead

This eel slithered out of the coral at the California Academy of Science aquarium and bared its teeth at me during our visit. I grinned back and told him that I’d eaten his cousin raw on a piece of sushi in Half Moon Bay.

This 87-foot skeleton of a blue whale hung from the ceiling of the Academy. I did not see any posters that explained where the skeleton came from. But a guy at our astronomy club meeting last night said that when he lived in the Bay Area about 15 years ago, a huge whale carcass washed ashore near Golden Gate Bridge. He said the carcass was buried for a decade, then dug up and rendered into the skeleton, which now hangs around in the Academy.

However the company that restored the skeleton says the bones are actually 55 years old. And this news release says the Academy has owned the skeleton for 95 years! The truth is out there...