In 2007, Alaskan hunters made a discovery that rewrote what we know about whale lifespans. Inside the flesh of a bowhead whale, they found fragments of an exploding harpoon — a weapon made between 1885 and 1895. That meant this whale had survived a whaling attack more than a century earlier, carrying the weapon inside its body for over 100 years. If the harpoon dated to the 1800s, the whale itself had to be at least 115 years old. And scientists now know that bowhead whales may live well beyond

Despite the controversy, Japan still holds its Whale Meat Festival. | Vocativ