Trending News: Blue whales are the largest animals to have ever existed on Earth, reaching up to 100 feet long and weighing as much as 200 tons. Their hearts, which can weigh up to 1,000 pounds, are the size of small cars and are the largest in the animal kingdom. These massive organs are capable of pumping up to 60 gallons of blood per beat and have a resting heart rate of only five to six beats per minute.
Recently, Harsh Goenka shared a picture of a preserved blue whale heart on Twitter, which weighs 400 pounds (181 kg), measures 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall, and has been on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada since 2017. According to the business tycoon, the heartbeat of this enormous heart can be heard from over 2 miles (3.2 km) away.
Take a look at the post about blue whale heart below:
The heart was salvaged from the carcass of a female blue whale that washed ashore in Newfoundland, Canada, in 2014. The preservation process, which took three years, involved extracting the heart, dilating it, shipping it to Toronto, and plastination, a technique that replaces water and fat with a polymer to prevent decay.
Jacqueline Miller, who led the preservation effort, said that the sheer size of the heart made it difficult to salvage. It took four staff members to push the heart out of the thoracic cavity, through a window created through the ribs, and into a dumpster bag.
