One of the few blue whale hearts ever preserved weighs 180 kilos and is 5’ x 4’ x 4’ in size. It’s the world’s biggest heart! The Royal Ontario Museum extracted the heart from a dead 76 foot blue whale that washed ashore in Newfoundland. Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are the largest animals in the world, growing to about 100 feet in length. Around 5000-10,000 of the notoriously shy blue whales live in the southern hemisphere and only 3000-4000 in the northern hemisphere.
Scientists were then able to salvage some of the whale’s organs to conduct never-before-done research.
The heart, which measures 5x4x4ft and pumps out 220 litres of blood per beat, was in such good condition that it was a perfect candidate for preservation using a technique called plastination.
During this process, researchers from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto pumped the heart with formaldehyde, stiffening the muscles as stopping decomposition.
They then soaked the heart in acetone to remove all the water from the tissue, down to the cellular level.
Picture Credit : Google