Dave Schaafsma's Reviews > Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall

I picked up Life After Whale (2024) by Lynn Brunelle from my library because I saw it was illustrated by a favorite artist, Jason Chin, who is particularly known for his passionate commitment to the natural world. Life After Whale is amazing, one of my favorite books of the year.

I just saw a whale on the cover, but I had not paid any attention to the title, which also refers to what naturalists call “whale fall,” which happens when a whale dies. The whale in question in this book is a blue whale that dies at 90. And tt the opening of the book the whale lunges to eat krill, which exist as part of many co-existing ecosystems that are in part created by whalefalls, so the book ends where it begins.

What did I learn? Among many things, I was reminded or learned that

*The blue whale is the largest creature to ever grace this planet, including even dinosaurs such as the T-Rex. It can be the length of three school buses! 110 feet long, 65 tons, the heart the size of a golf cart, they tell me.
* You can tell a lot of what a whale is through layers of ear wax, where we can determine how many births she has had, illnesses, and other struggles.
* As the dead body falls, it is surrounded by bioluminescence, glowing, twinkling jellyfish and shrimp
*There are many phases of whale fall that--get this--can over all take as much as a couple centuries(!! where various creatures feed on this carcass. Centuries! Then back to krill, who have eaten whales, and feed whales!

Whale fall:
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/w...

The evolution of a whalefall:
https://nautiluslive.org/blog/2024/06...