How-To: Collect whale snot using an RC helicopter

Energy & Sustainability Science
How-To:  Collect whale snot using an RC helicopter
whale-helicopter.jpg

Lately we’ve had lots of folks writing in seeking practical advice on collecting tissue samples for use in studying whaleborne disease. I had no idea there were so many amateur cetopathologists out there!

Anyway, as you folks know–all too well, I’m sure–it is extremely difficult to collect blood from a wild whale without injuring or killing it in the process. However, and as even a child can tell you, the next best thing to live whale blood is live whale snot. Turns out it spews from their blowholes when they exhale, so the process is really very simple:

  1. Find whale.
  2. Hold petri dish over blowhole to intercept spout.
  3. Return to lab, enjoy sample.

Step 2 is actually the hard part. And although your first instinct may be to just jump in your rowboat, paddle out to a whale pod, lean way out over the side with your sample container, and wait, that’s actually not as safe as it might sound. Each year, untold millions of scientists die attempting this maneuver. Their sun-bleached bones litter beaches all along the Pacific coast.

Enter Dr. Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, of the Zoological Society of London. Her recent paper in Animal Conservation (abstract), irresistibly entitled “A novel non-invasive tool for disease surveillance of free-ranging whales and its relevance to conservation programs,” introduces the ground-breaking methodology of strapping a petri dish to a toy RC helicopter and flying it into the spout. This landmark work stands not only to revolutionize our understanding of whale disease, but to save countless lives, and establishes Dr. Acevedo-Whitehouse as a serious contender for this year’s (Ig) Nobel Prize.

[via The Thoughtful Animal]

P.S. Dr. Acevedo-Whitehouse, you are made of awesome. And although I have never met you and probably never will, I love you with all my heart.

8 thoughts on “How-To: Collect whale snot using an RC helicopter

  1. RocketGuy says:

    The title alone is worth it, but really, this is just one of those posts that fills me with hope for humanity.

    I don’t know why, exactly, but it does.

    Possibly the best use of the phrase “Whale Snot” I’ve ever heard.

    1. Sean Michael Ragan says:

      “this is just one of those posts that fills me with hope for humanity”

      Me, too. Just thinking that there are people working hard to fly helicopters into whale spouts to collect their snot, just so they can understand the natural world better, has me channeling Dr. Who in one of his “amazing human beings!” moments.

  2. Adam E says:

    “Each year, untold millions of scientists die attempting this maneuver. Their sun-bleached bones litter beaches all along the Pacific coast.”

    I don’t believe that at all. Maybe dozens at the most! Otherwise the helicopter is a great idea!

  3. ericmechlane says:

    I think this is great idea to use the rc helicopter for collect the whole snot and research.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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