Diver UK – July 2019

3 divEr

T

HE BLUE WHALE isn’t just the biggest sea

creature in the world today; it seems likely

that it’s the biggest that has ever existed.

Prehistoric contenders would have included

Leviathan melvillei, named after the biblical sea

monster and the author of Moby Dick. This sperm

whale preyed on other whales (including the blue’s

smaller ancestors), but probably didn’t grow much

longer than 18m, with 36cm-long tusks for teeth.

Far bigger than a bus, yet modestly proportioned

if set beside 30m and 170 tonnes of blue whale.

Some paleobiologists believe it was the threat posed

by Leviathans that caused other whales such as blues

to bulk up, evolving to become better equipped to

defend themselves and compete for prey.

As a relatively shallow-water species, Leviathan

was a victim of climate change – an Ice Age some

10 million years ago. The bones of only one have

been found – look it up if you’re ever in Peru.

Only another shallow-water species, Carcharocles

megalodon, could have competed with the Leviathan for size (hey,

I feel a movie script coming on!). The giant Megalodon shark died out

as recently as 1.5 million years ago, perhaps because of competition

from killer whales. Those orcas always were trouble.

While not as big as the recent movie The Megsuggests, the largest

Megalodons could match Leviathan length for length. If you’ve dived

with impressively bulky bull or tiger sharks, imagine taking the

plunge with a shark three times the size of a full-grown great white.

So today’s Balaenoptera musculus, the blue whale, easily outranks

Leviathan and Megalodon for sheer size. Imagine, baby blues at birth

are already 8m long and weigh four tonnes!

If you want to see these remarkable feats of biological engineering,

I suggest a well-timed trip to the Azores, Iceland, California or

Mexico. But I wouldn’t leave it too long, because naturally the blue

whale is endangered – there might be no more than 10,000 left.

T

HIS ISSUE OF divEris dedicated to big animal encounters, and

because we don’t have a feature about the biggest sea creature of

all time, I thought it only fair to pay brief tribute to its stature above.

We have whale sharks, of course, but gathered at a destination new to

most of us, St Helena. A trip is a practical proposition now, however,

and you’ll find it delightfully unspoiled, according to Scott Bennett.

Another path less trodden is to Guadalupe off Mexico, where Henley

Spiers was awed by marlin and sea-lions playing havoc with baitballs.

Meanwhile, it was watching baitballs being cut down to size by a

variety of big animals that drew Morten Bjorn Larsen to the annual

Sardine Run off South Africa.

Brandi Mueller has a fine time with the many sharks of

Tiger Beach in the Bahamas, and we also find time to

study the sea’s strangest big animal – the scuba diver.

Richard Aspinall used to try to keep other divers out of

his photos, but not any more. He explains why.

But I’m still dreaming of blue whales. One day.

STEVE

WEINMAN,

EDITOR

FIRST

IN

Big, blue &

magnificent