# Giant Dead Sea Thing washes up on Seram island in Indonesia

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 12, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476 "2017-05-12T19:52:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476/41 "2017-05-15T17:49:21Z")

</div>

ETA: Missed edit window, the second “not” was quite obviously a typo.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476/42 "2017-05-16T23:27:56Z")

</div>

It could be both squid and whale. Giant squids sometimes attack and kill whales. Maybe both predator and prey died.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476/43 "2017-05-17T02:38:06Z")

</div>

> [@Riemann](#):
>
> Perhaps it’s not unidentifiable, but I don’t agree that it’s not even close. I have no doubt that a non-expert like you would be unable to deem it either identifiable or unidentifiable if it were slightly less identifiable.

1/ It’s 50 feet long. Whales are the only animal that long. QED. End of discussion. This single feature is so fundamental that unless the carcass fell apart into small pieces, it immediately indicates it’s a whale. So the carcass would have to be in a fundamentally different state for it not to be identifiable.

2/ It has a spine. It’s a vertebrate. It’s therefore not some giant squid at least three times bigger than any previously observed giant squid.

3/ It has baleen, FFS. Only whales have baleen.

4/ It has those groove things in its skin that whales have.

So it wasn’t even close to being unidentifiable as a whale. It had multiple obvious features of a whale.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476/44 "2017-05-17T03:09:56Z")

</div>

Someone needs to poke it with a stick. If it opens it’s eyes and say’s, _“what the f\*\*k do you think you’re doing!?!”_, run away…it’s just my slumbering ex-wife.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giant-dead-sea-thing-washes-up-on-seram-island-in-indonesia/786476.md?page=2)