City museum to exhibit largest whale skeleton in China
The skeleton of the largest whale skeleton being exhibited in China.
The skeleton will officially meet visitors at the Shanghai Natrual History Museum on Friday.
A dead whale has been granted a new lease of life at Shanghai Natural History Museum.
The skeleton of the male baleen, 24 meters in length and 3 tons in weight, is the longest baleen whale skeleton being exhibited in China. It will officially meet visitors at the center stage of the B2 floor on Friday.
Taxidermist Zhang Tangming processes the dead whale at the scene
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Sun Leqi / Ti Gong
The dead whale was washed shore in Shanghai's coastal Lingang area in March 2017. The body was highly decayed when it was found by local fishermen. Experts estimated it had been dead for more than 10 days.
Taxidermist Zhang Tangming still remembers the overpowering stench of the decomposing flesh as he first came across the body. But he and his colleagues had no choice but to process it in situ.
The decay process filled the whale carcass with methane gas, and it could have exploded at any minute. So, they punctured the carcass to release the gas before they opened it up for a necropsy. Zhang made the first cut.
The dead whale
"I could never forget it. The smell was distinctly off-putting," he said. "At first, we were wearing gas masks all day. But gradually, we got used to it."
They stayed at the site for about three weeks to dissect the huge mammal. As a crane or other heavy equipment would have quickly sunk into the mudflats, they turned to very traditional methods – using bamboo rafts to build a road leading to the whale and standing on them to dissect it.
The bones were then transported back for further processing which took more than three and half years.
"We used biological degradation to move the residual meat and fat. It was a time-consuming but environmentally friendly way to proceed," he said.
When the whale was found, it was missing part of its left fin and its left jawbone was broken. So, taxidermists crafted models to replace the missing parts, together with components to connect the bones.
The body was transported to the museum last Sunday. On Thursday afternoon, taxidermists pieced together the ribs and fins, the last step of the reconstruction of the mammal. It took nearly one and half hours.
The largest whale skeleton previously at the museum was that of Bryde's whale, some 11 meters in length.
