KARWAR: A skeleton of a whale exhibited at the marine biology department in Karnatak University has caught the attention of experts from the National Institute of Oceanography. They want to exhibit one such in the new Parliament Bhavan in Delhi, sources said.
This whale was washed ashore at Bhatkal in 1971. “NIO director Sridhar and others were here for some work and enquired about the process adopted by authorities to preserve it. He said the new parliament building will exhibit some of such rare species relics,” Jagannath Rathod, head of the department, Marine Biology, Karnatak University Dharwad (KUD) told The New Indian Express.
Accordingly, the NIO officials have stated that rare findings or specimens will be displayed there.
“The skeleton of Baleen whale is a rare thing. They enquired about how it was mounted and exhibited here,” said Shivakumar Haragi, asst professor, department of Marine Biology (DMB), KUD.
The skeleton in the department has been a major attraction for researchers and students of Marine Biology for the past many decades. Baleen whales or blue whales weighs up to 136 tonnes. However, the length of the skeleton is 12 metres and it weighs up to three tonnes.