Things that make you go hmmm....

[johno]

...while watching Cartoon Network in the middle of the night.

Zoobooks ad, written for kids introduces them to the world of animals...

then proceeds to give a series of random facts about animals.

Including the tidbit "The largest animal in the world, lives on the smallest."

Meanwhile they are are showing shots of Orcas eating fish.

1) Orcas are not whales

2) Blue Whales eat krill, not fish.

Makes you wonder what other factual errors there are in the magazine.

Comments

Ayup, that made me go hmmm

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Orcas are not whales

I didn't know that. What are they?

Re: Ayup, that made me go hmmm

[johno.livejournal.com]

They are actually a type of Dolphin.

Re: Ayup, that made me go hmmm

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

But isn't a dolphin a kind of whale? I mean, I see three aquatic, carnivorous, mammals: dolphins, killer whales[*], and sperm whales. Look pretty similar, all have teeth, and all are (as near as I can tell) much more like each other than any of them is like a blue or humpback whale. It's a matter of convention that we say, "Anything below thus-and-such a size doesn't get to be called a 'whale'." So why not draw the line below Mr. Orca, so we can call the killer whale a "whale"?

In fact, M-W online describes both killer whales ("...a small gregarious whale...") and dolphins ("...any of various small toothed whales...") as whales. Of course, that isn't a scientific source, but it counts for something.

In the magazine's defense, I'll suggest that probably the tidbit and the photo came from the same article--an article about cetaceans--and didn't really go together in the article. The people making the ad take cool factoid and cool shots and combine them, inappropriately.

[*] Sic. The name is just so much cooler than "orca".

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Um, when I had "Marine Mammals of California" at Foothill College, we were taught Orcas are a type of whale.

There are two main types of whales: ones with a single blowhole, and ones with two blowholes. With sufficient study you can identify the type of whale you're watching by the spray pattern from its blowhole.