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Does anyone else find baleen whales to be creepy as hell? Is this just me being odd again?
(hexbear.net)
Seriously, these things are the closest we have to an eldrich abomination in mammal form. They're so bizarre, probably because they're mammals, so familiar yet alien enough that it turns into uncanny valley.
Their weird upside down mouths give me the heebie jeebies. Who the hell has hair for teeth? That is the stuff of nightmares. Imagine getting tangled up in that gross stuff. I bet they wouldn't even notice because they're terryingly huge.
The way they float in the deep blue void of the ocean reminds me of some kind of alien creature floating through space. How can a giant air breathing mammal live like that?
Dude gives me the willies.
Didn't one of these swallow a kayaker and spit them out?
There's really no way a baleen whale could swallow a human, their esophagus is way too small. (Non-toothed) Whales are hyper specialized to eating incredibly small prey with that baleen filtering. Even a huge baleen whale would have to spit out a human-sized object, though the experience is probably not fun for either party
They're incredibly intelligent and essentially completely harmless to humans
I googled it, it was a humpback in Chile!