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.
Balleen whales are a very advanced and wise mode of being. Biologically, we are not predisposed to investigating grains and locating them into heaps. Balleen is straight up a grain sorter mounted to their faces. In a sense their whole lives are spent making a heap–and what a heap it is–the largest, most successful animals of all time
tell that to the next person who says philosophy isnt important; the more heaped up the animal the bigger and better it is
Brother they say the same thing about us.
the ocean deeps is totally weirder than outer space to me. because stuff actually lives there. big stuff, not like tardigrades and dormant microbes in ice pockets. large things that feed on detritus and live in the dark, adapted to incomprehensibly high pressures.
whole ecosystems along the edges of thermal layers, individual leviathans cruising currents around the planet. and it’s not silent, though maybe it’s quiet across large areas sometimes. but sound travels much farther in water, so there’s a network of communication among larger species using lower frequencies.
the ocean depths i think are a perennial source of inspiration for sci-fi writers world building a populated and busy outer space.
They’re cool, no buli
I think seeing the horror in this is valid but all I see is a big pog face because the internet has poisoned my mind.
That being said big inorganic things underwater activate my fight or flight for whatever reason. Not sure why this is fine but if it was say, a statue, it’d freak me out more.
tfw mom made krill for dinner
I think they are very weird but they don’t creep me out. My terror is on the other side of the size scale. Parasites freak me out.
And on the minute scale - bacteriophages. A bacteriophage is a virus that parasitizes a bacterium by infecting it and reproducing inside it. Something inside my brain refuses to accept they are real and they must be spacecraft or something from sci-fi. Nature makes some fucked up shit.
haii im a bacteriophage! this is my collar and this is my whiskers and my tail :3
You could turn that into a song lyric.
I’m a little bacphage,
Short and stout,
Here is my handle
Here is my spout
When I get all injecty
Hear me shout,
I land on it 'n pour me out!-–
Not my best parody lyrics but everything has too many syllables.
I had a picture book of cetaceans when I was a child, so I’ve always thought they were pretty amazing and majestic. I also have a strong connection to the sea from my youth, so maybe I’m just weird like that.
Same, I love these charming lads!
I think theyre cool. Ive felt baleen before, it’s bristly like a broom.
Completely natural. Those things are big enough to kill you by accident without even noticing. It would be weird to be at ease with them.
There has been no recorded case of a baleen whale killing a person who didnt try to kill them first, it’s actually anatomically impossible for them to swallow you. They have a huge moth but a really narrow throat, people have been sucked up but they get spit back up immediately.
Im not saying its a well founded, evidence backed belief to think whales are coming for you, just that its a natural reaction to be afraid of a thing that large that can move that fast through an environment you’re basically helpless in.
I agree there. I would also be scared of anything that bif around me. I just also think its really neat that they’ve never killed anyone unless in self defense and even the it was cause they sank a boat
For me it’s Belugas
I’m pretty sure there’s a user here who has some sort of phobia with Belugas too
Some kinds of mouths creep me out. I got a whole list of mouths I’m not letting near my mouth and a lot of them are ocean-based.
You know how dog water gets all gross and slimy after they go to town on it? The ocean is the planet’s dog water bowl. It’s a slimy goopy salty mess, it’s cool as fuck but it’s gross and I don’t want its mouths near my mouth.
Nah whales have always scared me just from size alone. Like the idea of a blue whale below me in the ocean is terrifying. Cool animals but not near me thanks.
Mind you I’m scared of the ocean in general because it’s so huge, powerful and I suck at swimming. The blue whale is much like the sea itself.
It’s some horror tier shit
Teethmaxxing and mogging on plankton
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!
