Mystery of world’s oldest whale with 200,000lb beasts found with HARPOONS still embedded in them from over 100 years ago

A SPECIES of whale believed to be so old and mysterious that harpoon arrows from 100 years ago were found to be embedded in them.

A giant bowhead whale was captured off the coast of Alaska with a harpoon arrow still stuck in its neck.

The arrow fragment dates back to approximately 1880s, meaning the whale was approximately 130 years old.

Now biologist believe the bowhead whale could be the oldest living mammal on earth.

The oldest living mammal on earth

Not much is known about the mysterious bowhead whale, however new studies on the deep water creatures has shone a light on their underwater movements.

A diving team from Japan's Hokkaido University, Aarhus University in Denmark and Greenland Institute of Natural Resources spent five months studying the diving records of 12 whales that had been tagged in west Greenland’s Disko Bay. 

Divers found that the mysterious mammals were diving diving in synchrony over the course of up to a week, even when they were far apart.

The team believe that the synchronisation could be linked to acoustic communication, they think the whale's behaviour might be the first evidence of a theory of long-range signalling between whales that was first proposed more than half a century ago.

Associate professor Evgeny Podokskiy from the Arctic Research Centre at Hokkaido University said: "The possibility of acoustically connected whales, which seem to be diving alone but are actually together, is mindbending.

"Our study identifies a framework for studying the sociality and behaviour of such chaotically moving, unrestrained marine animals.”

Podolskiy said he hoped that the research community would now collect more simultaneous tag data to build on the team’s findings

A large, dark coloured whale with a white chin, the bowhead whale has a massive triangular skull used to break through the Arctic ice.

A type of baleen whale, the bowhead is a filter feeder, and feeds by swimming forward with its mouth wide open feasting on krill, copepods, mysids, amphipods, and many other crustaceans.

On average, female bowheads are larger than males, measuring at 59 ft and and weighing 80 metric tons. Males average at approximately 52 ft.

Scientists also believe the bowhead whale to be the longest-living mammal, with an average lifespan of 200 years.

Researchers at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, estimated that bowhead whales' maximum natural lifespan is 268 years based on genetic analysis.

Bowheads are an endangered species and there are currently about 8,000 to 12,000 left.

They travel in small pods and calves weigh as much as six tons at birth. Their only foes are man and orca whales.

The deep diving whale also has heaving bones and a thick one foot layer of blubber to protect it from the freezing Arctic waters.

Surviving harpoon attacks

The blubber, designated to keep the whale warm, also acted a sort of shield against harpoon attacks

The weapon fragment lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade comes from a 19th century bomb lance.

Experts pinned down the weapons manufacture to a New England factory in about 1880.

Even though the device probably exploded, the bowhead was protected by a one foot thick layer of blubber and thick bones it uses to break through ice one foot thick to breathe at the surface.

John Bockstoce, a curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts said: "It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place.

"He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."

Six similar harpoon points have been found in the whales since 2001.

Whale hunting

The harpoon fragments were found after Alaskan whalers caught the sea creature in 2007. They required a chainsaw to carve up the whale for its meat.

Commercial whaling is now banned by international agreement.

However natives from Alaska, the Chukotka region of eastern Russia and Greenland are permitted to hunt a fixed number of whales for traditional, non-commercial consumption.

In Alaska, meat from hunted whales is distributed to all residents of the hunters' villages.