en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_whale
1 correction found
The brain of a blue whale, which weighed 50.9 tonnes (112,000 lb), weighed about 3.636 kg (8.02 lb).
The 3.636 kg figure is a known literature error. It comes from a blue whale brain that had been re-weighed after about four weeks in alcohol, not its original fresh mass.
Full reasoning
A 2017 paper in Marine Mammal Science specifically traced this exact 3,636 g number through the literature and found that it was misused. The authors report that the original source, Guldberg (1885), gave the blue whale brain an initial weight of 6,700 g, and that it was only re-weighed at 3,636 g after about four weeks in alcohol, which caused substantial shrinkage. In other words, 3.636 kg was not the fresh brain weight and should not be presented as though it were.
That correction also matches modern reference summaries: Guinness notes that the blue whale brain is around 6 kg (15 lb), not 3.636 kg. So the article is repeating a value that later scholarship has explicitly identified as an erroneous, dehydrated measurement rather than the actual brain mass.
2 sources
- The blue whale brain misrepresented by an alcohol dehydrated brain of 3,636 grams
According to Guldberg (1885), the blue whale brain he measured initially weighed 6,700 g ... The brain was immersed in alcohol for approximately 4 wk and was weighed again as 3,636 g. Thus, the brain lost about 46% of its mass in the alcohol fixative.
- The record-setting anatomy of the blue whale: a look inside the largest animal in the world | Guinness World Records
The brain is proportionately tiny. It tips the scales at around 6 kg (15 lb); for context, human brains weigh about 1.4 kg (3 lb).