Blue whale skeleton still leaking oil 26 years after death

So much oil was found in the bone marrow of a blue whale that died after being hit by a ship more than two decades ago that the museum had to install a device to catch it.

When visiting the New Bedford Whaling Museum in southeastern Massachusetts, visitors should be careful standing under a 65-foot-long blue whale skeleton. That's because the whale's bones are still leaking oil , even though the animal has been dead for more than two decades. Named the King of the Blue Ocean (Kobo) , the rare blue whale skeleton has been on display at the museum since 2000. The leak is the result of the whale's bone marrow being filled with oil , much more than human bones, according to Popular Science .

The skeleton of a blue whale nicknamed Kobo. (Photo: New Bedford Whaling Museum).

'Marrow oil is an energy source for whales. Especially baleen whales, which often have a period of time during the year when they don't feed ,' said Robert Rocha, associate curator of science and research at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. 'There's energy stored in muscle and fat, but the energy stored in oil and bone is their reserve.'

Normally, whale bones lose this oil through natural processes as they are buried on the sea floor and gnawed by barnacles and other animals. However, Kobo was found on the bow of a ship. Despite being the largest animal on the planet, blue whales are no match for giant oil tankers and can be accidentally hit by ships.

Kono, who was probably around five years old and estimated to weigh 80,000 pounds, was accidentally killed by a 480-foot cargo ship while en route from Belgium to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1998, according to Rocha. The carcass was pulled ashore and dissected for study by scientists. The collection team did not spend time removing the oil from the skeleton, but simply left it in the sun and processed it.

In 2010, the museum installed an oil catcher to see how much oil they could collect. The catcher is located near the beak, snout, and spine. It collects the oil that drips into a jar every day, and the museum collected 1,000ml in a storage jar and 200ml in the catcher.

The oil from such skeletons was not used for lighting during the whaling period of the 19th century. It was not until the development of fishing facilities and processing plants that fishermen and soldiers could use the oil from the bones. The oil was also used in explosives because a byproduct of whale oil soap is glycerol . When glycerol is mixed with nitric and sulfuric acid, it produces the explosive nitroglycerin . Nitroglycerin was used as a propellant for bullets and rockets during World War I and II.