The earplug of a 12-year-old blue whale washed ashore in California revealed the whale's age and the chemicals and pollutants it was exposed to throughout its entire lifetime.
It seems that earwax may just be what scientists need for an "unprecedented lifetime profile" of a baleen whale. Baleen whales, unlike humans, have their ear canals shielded from the outside environment. The seal does not bother them one bit though, as these mammals do not hear and rely on low frequency sound vibrations on their eardrums instead.
The result of years of accumulated earwax is an almost foot-long inch thick tube which scientists refer to as earplugs. According to the Smithsonian Mag, the earplug of the 12-year-old whale used in the study revealed many secrets - including pollutants and chemicals. Some of the substances found in the earplug are pesticides, flame retardants, mercury, chlordanes, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes or DDT which was banned 30 years before the whale was born.
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