WOODS HOLE, Maine, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Two Maine biologists have documented cumulative whale bone damage likely caused when the animals rise to the surface.
In a study published in the Dec. 24 issue of the journal Science, Michael Moore and Greg Early at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution report bone lesions in the rib and chevron bones of sperm whales.
They found the lesions grow in severity with age and are found in animals from the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.
Moore and Early studied 16 partial or complete sperm whale skeletons from the two oceans that had been archived in museums. They found a series of changes in bones attached to the backbone, namely rib bones, and other small bones in the sperm whale's tail region. The changes are patches of bone death as a result of obstructed blood supply to the joint surfaces of the bone.
The biologists concluded nitrogen gas bubbles from a decompression sickness-like syndrome were the most likely explanation.
