I've been arguing with friends about how many whales have been killed by lightning in the history of the earth.

One friend estimated 6. I reckon it's about 1:1000 chance that one whale has been killed by lightning.

What do you think?

bout 7

18

what do I win if I guess correctly?

1:1000 over the course of the whale's history on this earth or what?

Just 1:1000 man.

Need a bit more information to answer this question, on another not, this is a pointless thread, but i kinda like it.

Can fish even get hit by lightning?

zomg theyre not fiiiiissshhhhh

Nobody likes a marine biologist nerd.

Is the whale holding an umbrella or golf club?

I think it's a safe bet that there has been at least one whale hit by lightning since the dawn of time when above the surface coming up for air. What about if it were, say, about five metres below the surface of the water and the lightning were to hit directly above? Wtf happens then?

I imagine they could be at risk when they shoot water out of their blow holes, or maybe when they breach or something.

Unlikely.

Any mammal or fish that lives in water can sense an electrical storm and will go deep to stay out of harms way. When lightning hits an open body of water (ocean) most of the charge is absorbed within the first few metres.

I think salt water's a good conductor, so if it hit the water I imagine it would **** up anything near it.

I wouldn't expect the guy who blew the Absolute Poker case wide open would think of a thread like this.

My guess is that no whales have died from lightning. I don't know what odds I put against it though, maybe even money. I don't have a good enough understanding of how lightning works to make a good guess. I'm honestly not even sure if a whale would die if it got hit? is it grounded in enough spots that somehow it doesn't hurt it?

Dude, I thought you were in jail!

http://www.people.com/people/article...267888,00.html

Whales gotta breathe son. I'm sure at some point in time a whale has had to come up for air in the middle of a lightning storm.

I would think that 6 over the whole course of the universe would sound about right.

OMG nobody's made that joke yet!

Does it work like this? or would it avoid going through the fish seeing as the water conducts better then the fish?

Same spot here. How deep do they swim? Do they detect storms? How deep does lightning go? I can't even begin to guess.

See, that's the difference.

Data collected by whalers suggests that sperm whales and bottlenose whales
(one of the members of the little known family Ziphiidae) can stay under for
as much as 90 to 120 minutes respectively when pursued. These two species
eat deep water squid, and are capable of diving to depths of over 1000m.
Feeding dives for bottlenose whales at least are about 30 to 40 minutes for
deep dives.


Rorquals (the large baleen species which have throat grooves including blue
whales and humpbacks) can stay submerged for about 40 minutes, but usual
dive lengths are more on the order of 10-15 minutes. Dolphins (including
killer whales) usually do not dive very deep nor dive for very long. About
5-10 minutes in general, up to 15 minutes or so.

I would say dolphins and killer whales may have been jolted at some point.

The rest of yer whales can smell that lightning a coming and will ride it out while munching on some tasty squid.

Would a whale even be killed by lightning though