A 40-foot finback whale that washed up on Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts, has a very unusual anatomy: a gigantic swollen tongue!
What really stands out is the whale's swollen tongue, which looks like a giant balloon sticking out of its mouth.
C.T. Harry of the International Fund for Animal Welfare told the Cape Cod Times the tongue was swollen by gas created in the decomposition process.
Marine biologists may do a necropsy, but not so soon:
"You don't want an open carcass on the beach on a busy weekend," Harry told the paper.
(Photo: David G. Curran/SatelliteNewsService)
You know, how we're careless about chemicals?