Humpback whale tongue is as big as ... car

What is the pride of having the ' respectable ' tongue so much? Please, it is the humpback whale that washed ashore on Admiralty Island in southwest Alaska last Friday.

According to the scientists' guess, this 12 meter long fish may have died in a collision with a ship, then the body drifted ashore. The large stones on Admiralty Island made a second touch, causing the fish tongue to swell to the size of a small car.

Aleria Jensen, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that since the 1970s, there have been more than 60 accidents between ships and big fish. With the population of humpback - currently fluctuating around the 10,000 figure in the Alaskan Sea - growing at a rate of 7% per year, these clashes promise even more.

One day after the discovery, the experts conducted an autopsy and analyzed samples of skin, adipose tissue, food in the stomach and some animal cells. After a few weeks they hoped to give an accurate conclusion about the 'giant' death .

The tongue is swollen to the extent of deformity. (Photo: National Geographic)