Into the breach

Bishop Museum's new whale exhibit features some full-sized mammoth cetaceans, plus prehistoric ancestors

It's almost too easy to call it a whale of a show, but whatever. Thar she blows! Bishop Museum is hosting "Whales: Wonders of the Ocean" through September, and it's a newly animated exhibit by WonderWorks, the outfit that makes all those motorized dinosaurs.

Whales: Wonders of the Ocean Place: Bishop Museum Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, through September 21 Admission: $15.95, with discounts for youth, seniors, Hawaii residents and military; free for members and children under three Call: (808) 847-3511 or visit bishopmuseum.org

"People are excited by them," noted Hiilani Shibata of the museum's education department, who checked out the exhibit as it was being unpacked. "No one ever really gets to see a sperm whale or an orca -- more properly, a killer whale -- in the ocean around here, although a pod of killer whales did pass through Hawaii some years ago. Humpbacks get all the attention!"

Even though some of the whales in the exhibit aren't the biggest in the sea, "they're still pretty darn big!" said Shibata. The full-sized editions are a baby gray whale, a humpback whale and a killer whale, plus the heads of a northern right whale and a sperm whale. The general themes include whale origins, whale adaptations, whale behavior, whale dining habits, whale physiology and, of course, whale singing.

"Scientists can ID whales by their songs," said Shibata. Whalesongs also carry great distances, and so scientists figure the tunes serve a practical purpose. Moby Dick isn't humming to himself.

"No one ever really gets to see a sperm whale or an orca -- more properly, a killer whale -- in the ocean around here, although a pod of killer whales did pass through Hawaii some years ago. Humpbacks get all the attention!" Hiilani Shibata / Bishop Museum's education department

AFTER THE LONG, hard slog of evolving from fins and water-breathing to legs and air-breathing, the ancestors of modern whales called it quits about 50 million years ago and returned to the sea, where they grew to dinosaur sizes. (One close relative is the river hippo.) The order is generally called cetaceans, which is Latin for "big, ol' blubbery animal in the ocean which may or may not be a monster."

There are two tribes of whales, separated by their table manners: "baleen" whales sieve out plankton from sea water, while toothed whales chow down on fish and calamari. Toothed whales have a single blowhole, while baleen whales have dual-exhaust headers.

"One thing to remember is that whales are mammals, just like we are," said Shibata. Whales are warm-blooded, nurse their young and even have a little bit of hair.

WonderWorks being WonderWorks, prehistoric times are a key part of the exhibit, which may include the thankfully extinct Andrewsarchus, the biggest mammalian predator known -- it looks like the ugliest cage dog ever, blown up to monster proportions -- a creature, curiously, that belonged to the hoofed ungulate family instead of being clawed, and which is a likely ancestor of modern whales, but one they don't like to talk about.

Also on tap is Basilosaurus, which, despite its saurian name, is not a dinosaur but a kind of transition creature, not quite fully evolved into a whale, albeit not quite fully devolved from a land dweller either, a kind of Hillary/Barack of the sea.

"We're sea people in Hawaii, and we're always intrigued by what's in the ocean. People just love whales. I think it's because they're so big, big, big and yet so gentle. They're not Godzilla monsters. No. When you see them move through the water, see them jump so effortlessly, they're beautiful and full of grace." Hiilani Shibata / Bishop Museum's education department

Beneath those heaving skins of latex beats the mechanical hearts of aluminum and steel and pneumatics, controlled by microchips and compressed air. The original molds, however, were created by sculptors who tried to recreate every detail of the beasts' exterior, down to barnacles and sea lice.

Support for the exhibit came from Wyland Waikiki, the Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and Bank of Hawaii. The Sanctuary, under the aegis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is plumping out the presentation with activity and coloring books for kids, more displays, whalesong recordings and displays of whale lice, bones, and baleen samples, and even a humpback brain -- an organ that just recently was discovered to have neurotransmitters nearly identical to humans. Maybe they really are humming.

Apart from being great creatures, whales also have a mythic quality, notes Shibata.

"From the ancient Hawaiian viewpoint, whales were the manifestation of Kanaloa, one of the four great gods. Ancient Hawaiians never hunted whales, because they had enough food. On the other hand, whaling once became a major industry in the islands.

"We're sea people in Hawaii, and we're always intrigued by what's in the ocean. People just love whales. I think it's because they're so big, big, big and yet so gentle. They're not Godzilla monsters. No. When you see them move through the water, see them jump so effortlessly, they're beautiful and full of grace."

And that's no fluke.