Ocean’s giants focus of weekend

Otago Museum natural science assistant curator Kane Fleury (right) discusses a beaked whale skull with Stephen Bithell and his son Harrison (4), of Dunedin, at the museum on Saturday as part of the museum’s weekend-long ‘‘Whale of a Weekend’’ talks and activities.

The event was run in association with Dunedin’s latest New Zealand International Science Festival.

Museum science engagement co-ordinator Jessa Barder said whales appealed strongly to young people, because, like humans, they were mammals, but lived very different lives in a sometime extreme environment.

Part of her own presentation on Saturday reflected on the protective importance of whale blubber, ranging in thickness in different species from 2.5cm to 50cm.