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Whale tooth. (Read 5302 times)
Rockman
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Whale tooth.
Jan 21st, 2012 at 5:46pm
 
Some time ago, I went to a curiosity shop full of unusual things. A bucket full of whale teeth caught my eyes at once, I picked the biggest and nicest.

It looks really nice in display.
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #1 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 5:53pm
 
Hey it's the tooth of a sperm whale!
Very nice object!!
I'd love to find one, too - a blue whale once died on a shore nearby but I didn't manage to get her baleen - and my mom would have killed me if I had brought one home  Roll Eyes
Is it empty inside??
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Rockman
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #2 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 6:08pm
 
Only the top portion is empty, in the shape of a cone. Other pieces had completely solid stumps with no hole.

I wonder if in ancient times, when people were more ignorant, some guy walked around telling stories of how he killed a dragon and showing teeth as proof.
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #3 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 6:22pm
 
Know that in my Region, during these times, people believed that knapped arrowheads were fallen lightnings: you may find buried small pots with burned soil inside, and these indicates the exact point were a lightning fell, in some day of the Iron Age  Smiley
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Mauro.
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Rockman
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #4 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 6:37pm
 
I remember the remains of a "dragon" on a church in Denmark if I remember correctly. It was the skull of a rhinoceros and the rib of a whale.
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Rockman
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #5 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 6:39pm
 
Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Jan 21st, 2012 at 6:22pm:
Know that in my Region, during these times, people believed that knapped arrowheads were fallen lightnings: you may find buried small pots with burned soil inside, and these indicates the exact point were a lightning fell, in some day of the Iron Age  Smiley
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If they noticed that lightning on sand produces glass, they probably reasoned something similar happened on rock.
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Eoraptor
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #6 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 7:11pm
 
Ah.  I wish I could walk into a store and buy a whale tooth.  Good find.  I have a fossilized sperm whale tooth, but it is not in good shape.
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #7 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 8:08pm
 
I once was going to buy a couple of rhino's teeth, but they were way too expensive... unfortunately!
By the way, Iron Age people in my Region seems to have been very interested in Neolithic artifacts - there're at least 2 knapped arrowheads that have been used as necklaces, toghether with a cracked stone axe, and another flint arrowhead has been found buried inside one of these tiny pots, toghether with burned soil - this is a habit I've tried to recall in a novel I'm writing.
And what Bruno said about sand, lightnings and glass seems perfectly reasonable to me!

Anyway, just out of curiosity:

...

here's a whale rib exposed outside a Medieval church in Modena, Central Italy.
Exposing unusual and weird things like these, ammonites, strange stones, etc... was a common habit during the Middle Ages, and was useful to show the faithful the magnificence of the nature, therefore showing them the infinite power of God. Plus this habit indirectly meant the beginning of collecting, which later evolved into museums  Smiley
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Mauro.
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #8 - Jan 21st, 2012 at 8:35pm
 
I have a couple of sperm whale teeth that I aquired before the Marine Mammal Protection Act went into effect. I believe that now there is a fine for owning such things so disregard what I just said. Grin Grin Grin Roll Eyes
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #9 - Jan 22nd, 2012 at 2:22pm
 
Mauro, how on Earth can you be so sure that it is the tooth of a sperm whale and not some other type of whale!?
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #10 - Jan 22nd, 2012 at 3:01pm
 
For sperm whales are carnivores, unlike other whales, therefore they need such teeth when have to deal with giant squids at depths of 900+ meters  Wink
Other whales have big, strong teeth made of fibers with which they filter water and eat krill - tiny molluscs, shrimps and plankton.
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #11 - Jan 22nd, 2012 at 3:03pm
 
Hey, here's our friend  Cheesy

...

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kuggur slingdog
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #12 - Jan 22nd, 2012 at 6:40pm
 
A young sperm whale beached just a couple of weeks ago on the shore at our neighbouring farm, just about 5km from our place.
The guy living there took the lower jaw and removed the teeth.
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #13 - Jan 23rd, 2012 at 6:18am
 
About 5 years ago the puppy of a blue whale beached on a shore nearby.
She died months before and she was all yellow and rotten when she beached, nonetheless I went there and took a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, the carcass was so devastated that I could not take anything from it, but I saw a marine biologist who, armed with a huge knife and a thick glove, cut a square on the whale's body and put his whole arm inside her.
It was disgusting but the guy seemed to be in wonderland; later that week they managed to bring the corpse away from the shore.
They fixed it offshore and, after a few months, went there to pick up the bones.
We now have one of her teeth, and some other bones, at our scuba diving club  Smiley
Here's the puppy:

...

I love those creatures, my biggest dream is to meet them underwater and swim toghether!
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Re: Whale tooth.
Reply #14 - Jan 23rd, 2012 at 7:24am
 
just for the record.

Sperm whales are the largest predator on the planet and the largest of the toothed whales.

Baleen whales - do not have teeth. They use a sheet of beleen to filter krill and other tiny marine invertebrates from the water. They gulp in thousands of gallon of seawater and close their mouths, the water filters through the baleen and leaves the krill behind which are then just swallowed.
Filter Not teeth.

But killer whale teeth are almost as large as sperm whale teeth - and I would have thought the sale of whale teeth anywhere other than japan or finland (both countries that still have 'scientific' whaling fleets) would be illegal.

Ah - rockman - brazil, guessing not many things illegal to sell there Smiley
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