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> to understand their sheer size In the linked article, towards the middle, the photo shows 2 people reading the plaque next to a pink structure, which appears
by gurjeet 2y ago
> to understand their sheer size
In the linked article, towards the middle, the photo shows 2 people reading the plaque next to a pink structure, which appears to be that of a whale's heart. That, combined with the skeleton hanging over them, should give us an idea that we are no bigger to these whales, than probably an average snail is to us (between 5 cm and 9 cm).
- dmd 2y agoThe average snail is 2-5 cm, not 5-9 cm. Just sayin.
- ygra 2y agoPerhaps they meant slugs. In German at least, both are called Schnecken (just one is naked), so perhaps that persists in other languages as well.
- mkl 2y agoI think it's more likely different species in different places. I, in NZ, don't think I've ever seen a slug as much as 5cm long, let alone 9cm.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoLook up banana slug. Common where I live.
- card_zero 2y agoI'm guessing much, much smaller than that, taking microsnails into account. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-the-worlds-tiniest-snail https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-the-worlds-tinie... But let me just add up their lengths, along with the lengths of all giant african land snails and all other snails, and divide by the total number of snails in the world ... is there a statistical trick that could answer this, like the one for counting undiscovered species? Probably not.