The Myth of the 100-foot Whale

Blue whale off the California coast. (Photo: Erik Olsen)

Not So Big: How We Overstate the Length of the Blue Whale, Earth’s Largest Creature

One of the most extraordinary privileges of living in California, especially near the coast, is witnessing the annual arrival of blue whales. I’ve been at sea on several occasions when these giants surfaced nearby, and to see one in person, or even through my drone RC, is astonishing and unforgettable. I once had the rare and mind-blowing opportunity to swim with and film blue whales off the southern tip of Sri Lanka for a story I wrote and produced, an experience that will forever be seared into memory.

For decades, the blue whale has been celebrated as the largest creature ever to exist (Bigger than dinosaurs! True.), with many popular accounts claiming that these animals can reach lengths of 100 feet or more. Yet in all the videos, photographs, and encounters I’ve seen, not a single whale has come close to that. Still, article after article and documentary after documentary continues to repeat the claim that blue whales “reach 100 feet or more.” Nearly every whale-watching company in California repeats the claim, echoed endlessly across Instagram and TikTok.

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But is it true? Most blue whales I’ve seen off the coast of California are half that size or maybe 2/3. It felt misleading to say so otherwise. And so I did a lot of digging: reading, reaching out to experts, poring over historical records, and the fact is that no single blue whale has ever been scientifically measured at 100 feet. Close, as you will soon read, but not 100 feet or more. Especially not off the coast of California.

This discrepancy not only distorts our understanding of these magnificent creatures, but also highlights the broader issue of how media can shape and sometimes mislead public perception of scientific facts.

Blue whale tail fluke in Sri Lanka. (Photo: Erik Olsen)

In other words: the perception that blue whales commonly reach lengths of 100 feet or more likely stems from a combination of historical anecdotes, estimation errors, and a tendency to highlight extreme examples.

All that said, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a truly magnificent creature. Hunted nearly to extinction in the 17th to 19th centuries, the blue whale has staged a hopeful recovery in the last five decades, since commercial whaling was outlawed by the international community in 1966 (although some Soviet whale hunting continued into the early 1970s). And California, in particular, has been blessed with the annual appearance of the largest population of blue whales in the world, called the Eastern North Pacific population, consisting of some 2,000 animals. That population makes an annual migration from the warm waters of Baja California to Alaska and back every year. This is the group I’ve seen off Newport Beach.

These numbers are painfully, tragically small compared to what existed before commercial whaling began. Prior to that, it was estimated that there were some 400,000 blue whales on earth. 360,000 were killed in the Antarctic alone. (IMO: this stands as one of the most shameful acts in human history).

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The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are probably between 5,000 to 15,000 blue whales worldwide today, divided among some five separate populations or groups, including the Eastern North Pacific population. Many now swim so close to shore that an entire whale-watching industry has flourished along the California coast, especially in the south, with many former fishing boats converted into whale-watching vessels..

But back to size, or, more specifically, length: there are two credible references in scientific papers of blue whales that are near 100 feet. The first is a measurement dating back to 1937. This was at an Antarctic whaling station where the animal was said to measure 98 feet. But even that figure is shrouded in some suspicion. First of all, 1937 was a long time ago, and while the size of a foot or meter has not changed, a lot of record-keeping during that time is suspect, as whales were not measured using standard zoological measurement techniques (see below). The 98-foot specimen was recorded by Lieut. Quentin R. Walsh of the US Coast Guard, who was acting as a whaling inspector of the factory ship Ulysses. Sadly, there is scant detail available about this measurement and it remains suspect in the scientific community.

Blue whale in Sri Lanka. (Photo: Erik Olsen)

The second is from a book and a 1973 paper by the late biologist Dale W. Rice, who references a single female in Antarctica whose “authenticated” measurement was also 98 feet. The measurement was conducted by the late Japanese biologist Masaharu Nishiwaki. Nishiwaki and Rice were friends, and while both are deceased, a record of their correspondence exists in a collection of Rice’s papers held by Sally Mizroch, co-trustee of the Dale W. Rice Research Library in Seattle. Reached by email, Dr. Mizroch said that Nishiwaki, who died in 1984, was a very well-respected scientist and that the figure he cited should be treated as reliable.

According to Mizroch, who has reviewed many of the Antarctic whaling records from the whaling era, whales were often measured in pieces after they were cut up, which greatly introduces the possibility for error. That is likely not the case with the 98-foot measurement, which took place in 1947 at a whaling station in Antarctica where Nishiwaki was stationed as a scientific observer.

Proper scientific measurements, the so-called “standard method”, are taken by using a straight line from the tip of the snout to the notch in the tail flukes. This technique was likely not used until well into the 20th century, said Mizroch. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1940s that the use of a metal tape measure became commonplace. According to Dan Bortolotti, author of Wild Blue: A Natural History of the World’s Largest Animal, many of the larger whales in the whaling records — especially those said to be over 100 feet — were probably measured incorrectly or even deliberately exaggerated because bonus money was paid to whalers based on the size of the animal caught.

So, according to the best records we have, the largest blue whale ever properly measured was 98 feet long. Granted, 98 feet is close to 100 feet, but it’s not 100 feet, and it’s certainly not over 100 feet, as so many otherwise reputable references state.

So, setting aside the fact that so many sources say the blue whale has reached 100 feet or more, and that there is no scientific evidence proving this, a key question to ask is how large can whales become?

Blue whale from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Most baleen whales are so-called lunge feeders. They open their mouths wide and lunge at prey like krill or copepods, drawing in hundreds of pounds of food at a time. Lunge-feeding baleen whales, it turns out, are wonderfully efficient feeders. The larger they become, the larger their gulps are, and the more food they draw in. But they also migrate vast distances, and oftentimes have to dive deep to find prey, both of which consume a large amount of energy.

A 2019 scientific paper in Science described how a team of researchers used an ocean-going Fitbit-like tag to track whales’ foraging patterns, hoping to measure the animals’ energetic efficiency, or the total amount of energy gained from foraging, relative to the energy expended in finding and consuming prey. The team concluded that there are likely ecological limits to how large a whale can become and that maximum size in filter feeders “is likely constrained by prey availability across space and time.” That is especially the case in today’s era, when overfishing and illegal fishing, including krill harvesting in Antarctica, have reduced the amount of prey available even in regions that used to be very prolific.

Whale fall off the California Coast (Ocean Exploration Trust)

John Calambokidis, a Senior Research Biologist and co-founder of Cascadia Research, a non-profit research organization formed in 1979 based in Olympia, Washington, has studied blue whales up and down the West Coast for decades. He told California Curated that the persistent use of the 100-foot figure can be misleading, especially when the number is used as a reference to blue whales off the coast of California.

The sizes among different blue whale groups differ significantly depending on their location around the globe. Antarctic whales tend to be much bigger, largely due to the amount of available food in cold Southern waters. The blue whales we see off the coast of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, are part of a different group from those in Antarctica. They differ both morphologically and genetically, and they consume different types and quantities of food. North Pacific blue whales, our whales, tend to be smaller and likely have always been so. Calambokidis believes that the chances any blue whales off the West Coast of the US ever reaching anything close to 100 feet is “almost non-existent”.

I emailed Regina Asmutis-Silvia, Executive Director North America of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, to ask about this discrepancy among so many seemingly authoritative outlets. She wrote: “While it appears biologically possible for blue whales to reach or exceed lengths of 100’, the current (and limited) photogrammetry data suggest that the larger blue whales which have been more recently sampled are under 80 feet.” Photogrammetry is the process of using several photos of an object — like a blue whale — to extract a three-dimensional measurement from two-dimensional data. It is widely used in biology, as well as engineering, architecture, and many other disciplines. Photogrammetry measurements are now often acquired by drones and have proven to be a more accurate means of measuring whale size at sea.

Here’s a key point: In the early part of the 20th century and before, whales were measured by whalers for the purpose of whaling, not measured by scientists for the purpose of science. Again, none of this is to say that blue whales aren’t gargantuan animals. They are massive and magnificent, but if we are striving for precision, it is not accurate to declare, as so many articles and other media do, that blue whales reach lengths of 100 feet or more. Or to insinuate that this size is in any way common. This is not to say it’s impossible that whales grew to or above 100 feet, it’s that, according to the scientific records, none ever has.

A relevant point from Dr. Asmutis-Silvia about the early days of Antarctic whaling: “Given that whales are long-lived and we don’t know at what age each species reaches its maximum length, it is possible that we took some very big, very old whales before we started to measure what we were taking.”

In an email exchange with Jeremy Goldbogen, the scientist at Stanford who authored the study in Science above, he says that measurements with drones off California “have been as high as 26 meters” or 85 feet.

So, why does nearly every citation online and elsewhere regularly cite the 100-foot number? It probably has to do with our love of superlatives and round numbers. We have a deep visceral NEED to be able to say that such and such animal is the biggest or the heaviest or the smallest or whatever. And, when it comes down to it, 100 feet is a nice round number that rolls easily off the tongue or typing fingers.

All said, blue whales remain incredible and incredibly large animals, and deserve our appreciation and protection. Their impressive rebound over the last half-century is to be widely celebrated, but let’s not, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, overstate their magnificence. They are magnificent enough.

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The Ancient Cycads: A Living Fossil Collection at Descanso Gardens

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Imagine a world lost in deep time. The atmosphere held less oxygen than at any point since the Cambrian explosion, and the land was dominated by iconic dinosaurs like Allosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Archaeopteryx, and Stegosaurus. It was an era poised for a new type of plant life that would come to define the landscape—cycads. While Jurassic forests are often depicted as dense with ferns, with their coiled fronds and lush foliage, these plants were not the sole stars of the ancient botanical world.

The true giants of the Jurassic flora were the cycads, seed-bearing plants with stout, woody trunks and crowns of stiff, feather-like evergreen leaves. In fact, the Jurassic is often referred to as the “Age of Cycads”. Cycads thrived during this period, approximately 280 to 145 million years ago, as evidenced by abundant fossils. These resilient plants, which once dominated prehistoric landscapes, have remarkably endured the passage of time, remaining largely unchanged (although this is now disputed) and offering a living glimpse into a world ruled by dinosaurs.

One of the most remarkable features of cycads is the toughness of their leaves. Touch them with your fingers. They have a much greater stiffness than most other plants. Cycad leaves are thick, leathery, and often waxy to the touch, with a heavy cuticle, a protective outer layer that makes them remarkably durable. Unlike the soft, broad leaves of many modern plants, cycad fronds are built to withstand intense sunlight, conserve water in dry environments, and deter herbivores. The stiff, sometimes spiny edges of the leaves would have made them a difficult meal, offering a critical evolutionary advantage during a time when giant plant-eating dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Cycad leaves are quite hard and resistant to insects. Evidence shows that dinosaurs ate cycad leaves regularly. (Photo: Erik Olsen)

Despite their formidable defenses, evidence shows that dinosaurs did in fact eat cycads. Fossilized dinosaur dung, known as coprolites, has been found containing fragments of cycad tissues and pollen. Some herbivorous dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus are believed to have browsed on cycads, along with other tough plants of the Mesozoic landscape. These animals likely evolved strong jaws and specialized teeth capable of grinding down fibrous, sturdy plant material. In turn, the resilience of cycad leaves helped the plants survive repeated grazing and harsh environmental stresses, allowing them to persist across millions of years into the present day. FYI: Flowering plants, or angiosperms, only came into being during the late reign of the dinosaurs, during the Cretaceous Period (145–66 million years ago).

Recent fossil discoveries are also reshaping how scientists view cycads. In 2023, researchers uncovered an 80-million-year-old fossilized cycad cone in Silverado Canyon, California, revealing that ancient cycads were far more diverse than their modern descendants. Previously thought to be “living fossils” that had remained largely unchanged since the dinosaur era, cycads now appear to have undergone significant evolutionary changes during the Cretaceous period. The find, assigned to a new genus called Skyttegaardia, highlights how much more dynamic and complex cycad history may be than once believed.

Cycads are cool to look at and examine closely, and it turns out that one of the best places in the United States to see actual living cycads in Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. But how’d they get there?

In 2014, La Canada Flintridge residents Katia and Frederick Elsea called the city’s Descanso Gardens with an odd proposal: would the famous horticultural center take their collection of over 180 rare cycads, a fern-like plant from the days of the dinosaurs?

The garden said yes, and now those plants are part of an effort to recreate a prehistoric landscape. Sixty-six species were transplanted from the Elsea collection to the garden’s Ancient Forest. Cycads form the heart of the forest, but there are also Tree ferns, with feathery fronds, and Ginkgo biloba, known for its distinctive fan-shaped leaves. This area, dedicated to showcasing some of the world’s oldest and most primitive plant species, highlights the remarkable resilience and beauty of plants that have survived for millions of years.

Cycads are a type of gymnosperm. Gymnosperms are a group of seed-producing plants that includes cycads, conifers, ginkgoes, and gnetophytes. Unlike angiosperms (flowering plants), gymnosperms do not produce flowers or fruits; instead, their seeds are exposed or “naked,” typically held in cones or on the surface of scales. They also have a unique structure, with a large crown of stiff, fern-like leaves arising from a stout trunk. They may look like palms or ferns, but they are actually their own distinct group of plants, with over 300 species in the world.

In contrast, flowering plants have been far more evolutionary successful. Angiosperms dominate most of the planet’s ecosystems, with an estimated 300,000 species, vastly outnumbering the gymnosperms. Their ability to form flowers and fruits has allowed them to diversify into nearly every terrestrial habitat on Earth.

Cycad cone (*Dioon edule*) at Descanso Gardens. Built for an ancient world: Cycad cones are among the largest and oldest seed structures on Earth, evolving long before the first flower bloomed. Their rugged design helped cycads thrive alongside dinosaurs — and survive into the modern day. (Erik Olsen)

The cycads at Descanso Gardens come from all over the globe, including Africa, Australia, and the Americas. They are part of the International Palm Society’s Cycad Collection, one of the largest and most diverse collections of cycads in the world. The collection at Descanso Gardens features over 200 cycad specimens, including rare and endangered species.

One of the fascinating plants showcased in the garden is the Sago Palm (not actually a palm), Cycas revoluta, a dioecious species, meaning it has separate male and female plants. Male Sago Palms produce multiple cones at their center, releasing pollen that insects carry to the female plants. The female plants develop a single, large cone in the center, which contains seeds. When the pollen fertilizes these seeds, a new plant can grow, continuing the cycle of this ancient species.

Another fitting addition to the Ancient Forest is the monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana. This small, spiky tree is entirely covered with sharp, scale-like leaves that resemble thick, dense pine needles but are much tougher. Known as one of the earliest living conifers, the monkey puzzle tree stands as a living relic from the time when these ancient trees dominated prehistoric landscapes.

Cycads are fascinating not just for their ancient history, but also for their unique biology. Unlike most plants, which have a single apical meristem (a region of cell division at the growing tip), cycads have multiple meristems, which allows them to produce new leaves even if the growing tip is damaged. They also have a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria, which live in their roots and fix nitrogen from the air, allowing the plant to grow in nutrient-poor soils.

Despite their ancient origins, cycads are facing modern-day threats. Many species are endangered due to habitat loss and over-collection for the horticultural trade. The cycad collection at Descanso Gardens is not just a beautiful display, but also an important conservation effort to preserve these ancient plants for future generations.

At Descanso Gardens, the cycads have been planted according to the geographic region where they originate: Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Australia and Mexico. Some of the plants no longer exist in the wild.

“For a really long time, this was plant life on Earth,” the former director, David R. Brown told the Los Angeles Times. “This helps remind me that, for as self-absorbed as we are often, we’re but a part of a story that has been going on for a very, very long time.”

If you’d like to learn more about Descanso Gardens, it’s collections and how it came into being check out this episode of Lost LA. And if you’re interested in seeing the cycad collection at Descanso Gardens for yourself, try visiting during the late afternoon, when the golden hour light heightens the beauty and mystery of these cool plants.

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The Man Who Saved the Owens Pupfish

51 years ago today a man named Edwin Philip Pister rescued an entire species from extinction.

Less than 2.5 inches in length, the Owens pupfish is a silvery-blue fish in the family Cyprinodontidae. Endemic to California’s Owens Valley, 200 miles north of Los Angeles, the fish has lived on the planet since the Pleistocene, becoming a new species when its habitat was divided by changing climatic conditions, 60,000 years ago.

For thousands of years, the Owens Valley was largely filled with water, crystal-clear snowmelt that still streams off the jagged, precipitous slab faces of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Pupfish were common, with nine species populating various lakes and streams from Death Valley to an ara just south of Mammoth Lakes. The Paiute people scooped them out of the water and dried them for the winter.

In the late 19th century, Los Angeles was a rapidly growing young metropolis, still in throes of growing pains that would last decades. While considered an ugly younger sibling to the city of San Francisco, Los Angeles had the appeal of near year-round sunshine and sandy beaches whose beauty that rivaled those of the French Riviera.

Owens pupfish (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

But by the late 1900s, the city began outgrowing its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, and his water czar, William Mulholland, hatched a plan to build an aqueduct from Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Most Californians know the story. Through a series of shady deals, Mulholland and Eaton managed to get control of the water in the Owens Valley and, in 1913, the aqueduct was finished. It was great news for the new city, but terrible news for many of the creatures (not to mention the farmers) who depended on the water flowing into and from the Owens Lake to survive.

So named because they exhibit playful, puppy-like behavior, the Owens pupfish rapidly began to disappear. Pupfish are well-known among scientists for being able to live in extreme and isolated situations. They can tolerate high levels of salinity. Some live in water that exceeds 100° Fahrenheit, and they can even tolerate up to 113° degrees for short periods. They are also known to survive in near-freezing temperatures common in the lower desert.

Owens River in the Eastern Sierra (Erik Olsen)

One of those animals is the Owens pupfish.

But hot or cold are one thing. The disappearance of water altogether is another.

As California has developed, and as climate change has caused temperatures to rise, thus increasing evaporation, all of California’s pupfish populations have come under stress. Add to these conditions, the early 20th-century introduction by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife of exotic species like largemouth bass and rainbow trout to lakes and streams in the eastern Sierras, and you get a recipe for disaster. And disaster is exactly what happened.

Several species of pupfish in the state have been put on the endangered species list. Several species, including the Owens pupfish, the Death Valley Pupfish and the Devils Hole pupfish are some of the rarest species of fish on the planet. The Devils Hole pupfish recently played the lead role in a recent story about a man who accidentally killed one of the fish during a drunken spree. According to news stories, he stomped on the fish when he tried to swim in a fenced-off pool in Death Valley National Park. He went to jail.

The remains of the Owens River flowing through Owens Valley in California. Credit: Erik Olsen

The impact on the Owens pupfish habitat was so severe that in 1948, just after it was scientifically described, it was declared extinct.

That is, until one day in 1964, when researchers discovered a remnant population of Owens pupfish in a desert marshland called Fish Slough, a few miles from Bishop, California. Wildlife officials immediately began a rescue mission to save the fish and reintroduce them into what were considered suitable habitats. Many were not, and by the late 1960s, the only remaining population of Owens pupfish, about 800 individuals, barely hung on in a “room-sized” pond near Bishop.

On August 18, 1969, a series of heavy rains caused foliage to grow and clog the inflow of water into the small pool. It happened so quickly, that when scientists learned of the problem, they realized they had just hours to save the fish from extinction.

Among the scientists who came to the rescue that day was a stocky, irascible 40-year-old fish biologist named Phil Pister. Pister had worked for the California Department of Fish and Game (now the California Department of Fish and Wildlife) most of his career. An ardent acolyte of Aldo Leopold, regarded as one of the fathers of American conservation, Pister valued nature on par, or even above, human needs. As the Los Angeles Times put it in a 1990 obituary, “The prospect of Pister off the leash was fearsome.”

“I was born on January 15, 1929, the same day as Martin Luther King—perhaps this was a good day for rebels,” he once said.

Pister had few friends among his fellow scientists. Known for being argumentative, disagreeable, and wildly passionate about the protection of California’s abundant, but diminishing, natural resources, Pister realized that immediate action was required to prevent the permanent loss of the Owens pupfish. He rallied several of his underlings and rushed to the disappearing pool with buckets, nets, and aerators.

Within a few hours, the small team was able to capture the entire remaining population of Owens pupfish in two buckets, transporting them to a nearby wetland. However, as Pister himself recalls in an article for Natural History Magazine:

“In our haste to rescue the fish, we had unwisely placed the cages in eddies away from the influence of the main current. Reduced water velocity and accompanying low dissolved oxygen were rapidly taking their toll.”

Los Angeles Aqueduct. Credit: Erik Olsen

As noted earlier, pupfish are amazingly tolerant of extreme conditions, but like many species, they can also be fragile, and within a short amount of time, many of the pupfish Pister had rescued were dying, floating belly up in the cages. Pister realized immediate action was required, lest the species disappear from the planet forever. Working alone, he managed to net the remaining live fish into the buckets and then carefully carried them by foot across an expanse of marsh. “I realized that I literally held within my hands the existence of an entire vertebrate species,” he wrote.

Pister managed to get the fish into cool, moving water where the fish could breathe and move about. He says about half the the population survived, but that was enough.

Today, the Owens pupfish remains in serious danger of extinction. On several occasions over the last few decades, the Owens pupfish have suffered losses by largemouth bass that find their way into the pupfish’s refuges, likely due to illegal releases by anglers. In 2009, the US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that five populations totaling somewhere between 1,500 and 20,000 Owens pupfish live in various springs, marshes, and sloughs in the Owens Valley, where they are federally protected.

by Erik Olsen

Additional material:

Oral history video featuring Phil Pister recounting his career and that fateful day.

Read previous articles in the California Science Weekly.

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