This morning’s random object was a humpback whale figurine from SeaWorld San Antonio, complete with a slightly goofy face but all the right anatomy to spark a deep dive.
Sketch & Coffee, Live! is streamed daily at 5:30am, Texas Time, at the YouTubes
We went back about 50 million years to the land-dwelling ancestors of cetaceans, then to 35 million years ago when baleen whales split from toothed whales, and finally to humpbacks appearing around 5 million years ago. We covered their long pectoral fins, up to a third of their body length, and the tubercles on their snouts, each with a sensory hair like a permanent goosebump for detecting water movement and tracking krill.
And yes, the math happened: a 45-foot, 40-ton humpback works out to roughly 35,000 prairie dogs in volume or 55 size-11 sneakers in length, because anything but metric. Of course, if you tried to stack 35,000 prairie dogs, they wouldn’t much like it. You’d end up with a heaving, chittering mound that smells like prairie dust and bad decisions. The sneakers are easier, but apparently that also translates to about 72 bananas, for anyone keeping alternative units of measure.
From there we rolled into how these giants feed, using a coordinated trick called bubble-net feeding. They corral krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans only a couple of inches long, by swimming in circles and blowing a shimmering wall of bubbles. The krill think they’re trapped by a wall, bunch up tight, and then the whales lunge through with mouths wide open, filtering the swarm through their baleen plates.
We also hit on their fame as the stars of “whale song” albums and CDs that were everywhere in the ’80s and ’90s. Back then, you could walk into any hippie store or mall record shop and find a display of humpback recordings playing in the background. I told the story about renting VHS tapes with my wife-to-be and hearing whale song on a store display, answering it like it was my jam, and confusing everyone around me.
And finally, we touched on their epic migrations: up to 5,000 miles each way between feeding and breeding grounds. In the Pacific, they’ll spend summers fattening up in the nutrient-rich waters of Alaska, then head all the way to Hawaii to breed and calve in the warmer winter waters.
Click here to watch the Humpback Whale episode of Sketch & Coffee, Live!
And if you or one of your teacher friends is looking for a 20-30 minute lesson plan about Humpback Whales, feel free to download and use this one:
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