Pay Attention, Nick Fedorko

Well, I've been posting alot today, mainly to account for the periods of inactivity over the last couple of weeks, but also because there's been alot of cool news to catch up on as well. And the latest piece of news I'll share is concerning that animal which I so often dub Nicholas Fedorko: the whale (It's a running joke, Nick's as fit as an Olympic athlete, but I always call him fat for giggles sake). This particular story concerns an ancient whale, however, and an awesome one at that. It's a species called Leviathan melvillei, a species named for "Moby Dick" author Herman Melville. And the name is entirely fitting as well. Measuring around 60 feet in length, with teeth more than a foot long, this whale was likely an extremely powerful predator when it lived in the seas of Peru 13 million years ago. As seen at right, the scientists who discovered Leviathan believe that the prehistoric whale (which was closely related to modern sperm whales) likely preyed on smaller baleen whales. In short, this animal was really awesome, and if you want some more pictures, read all about it here.