One of my son's favorite books is Everyone Poops
. Everyone Poops reveals some important pooping facts (some animals poop on the go, while some stop to poop) and has some fun pooping humor (a one hump camel has a one hump poop, and a two hump camel has a two hump poop). However, it leaves us with some vexing questions. The book asks, "What does whale poop look like?" and it provides no answer. Here's the answer:I know. I know. You didn't come to a cupcake blog to learn about whale poop. So, let's talk about whales and cupcakes.
Is this not the cutest whale cupcake shirt that you've ever seen?!
Want to win one? The shirt was a gift to me from Hey Cupcake! Threads and they are offering one to a Cupcake Project reader!
Here's how to win:
- Leave a comment on this post (not on Facebook, e-mail, or Twitter) with your favorite fun fact about whales.
- Your fact can be something true and fascinating (Google is your friend here, resist the urge to copy from the commenter above you - that's no fun),
- a story about a personal experience that you've had with whales (maybe you went whale watching),
- or a zany and fun made up whale fact: What do you think a whale's favorite cake flavor would be? What games
do whales like to play? Do whales enjoy listening to Lady Gaga
?
- Be sure that your comment also includes a way to contact you if you win.
- All comments must be posted by 11:59 PM CDT on August 31, 2011.
- Limit of one entry per person.
- Winner will be randomly chosen on September 1. I will email the winner and update this post with their name.
- If I don't hear from the winner within one week to claim their prize, I will choose a new winner.
- Sorry, but the prize can only be shipped to a U.S. address.
Hey Cupcake! Threads has lots of other cute cupcake-themed shirts (you should check them out!). I'll be doing a giveaway for another shirt (you'll see which one soon) on my Facebook page. Be sure to Like Cupcake Project on Facebook so you don't miss out!
106 comments:
What an adorable shirt! I recently saw a video where a whale actually takes on a shark and wins! Granted, it was one of those giant killer whales but I was still very impressed. So, whale fact: They can kick some shark butt.
my random fact is that the whale in pinocchio 'monstro' is the portuguese word for 'monster'
ana153@jwu.edu
My fun fact about whales: They are what's called "conscious breathers," so they can't become UN-conscious for too long or they could drown! It's thought that only one hemisphere of a whale's brain sleeps at a time so that they're never completely asleep. (Not too relaxing, if you ask me! :) )
Maybe not a fun fact, but I just recently read Moby Dick. Well, let's just say, the book is 500 pages long, and the great white whale doesn't show until page 420. A very loooooong story. Whales are cool, very cool.
Interesting fact! Orcas or Killer Whales are actually of the Dolphin family!
Right Whales, though endangered and little is known about them, are called Right because they were the right whales to hunt, obviously almost to extinction!
Sperm whales are called so because of the oil Spermeciti, nothing naughty! Which as we all know, those that have read Moby Dick, is produced in the head!
Growing up we would drive our boats out to the Narrows and watch whales and Orcas in pods with their babies at the end of summer. One of the moat memorable times of my life is seeing a blue whale born in Hawaii magical!
kristine.morton@gmail.com
You must not forget the suspenders, best beloved...
So yes, many whales don't eat with teeth.
Whales love cream of wheat
A whale's penis is called a dork. How about that! So don't let anyone call you dork again.
So I asked my husband what interesting fact he knew about whales...he tells me that Catherine Zeta-Jones comes from there. He thought I meant Wales the country, not whales the mammal!
When I visited Cannon Beach in Oregon, I waited and waited and finally saw a humpback whale come up for air. It was breath-taking, no pun intended.
Love the shirt! Up until I was about 16, my grand plan for life was to become a marine biologist to study whales in the wild. I've always had a fascination with dolphins especially. I love visiting my grandmother in Florida so we can watch them play and hunt in the bay right outside her condo; it's really amazing to see how they work together!
Super cute shirt!!
Whales can stay under water up to 30 minutes before surfacing for air.
barb @ pogowave.com
My story is about my 2 year old son who loves whales and anything that looks like a whale. We took him to Sea World for the first time and after he saw the Shamu show he believed any body of water was home for whales. So as we drove home we passed water under the freeway and he would yell, "whale". Or the hotel pool, he would yell "whale"! Lets just say he can tell you the difference between a Beluga, Humpback, and Blue Whale. So this shirt would be the icing on the cake :)
Beluga whales are the only whales capable of making facial expressions...and they suddenly make me want to break into singing "Baby Beluga"! meganloraine@sbcglobal.net
Whales belong to the order Cetacea, and there are over 75 known Cetacena species. There are 15 common baleen whales and 26 common toothed whales
Awesome whale shirt! I think a whale's favorite cupcake flavor would be fish fingers and custard (just like Doctor Who!)
This is my personal story/ happened everyday in the Winter story: Well, in about 4 months, whales will begin to migrate through Hawaii to give birth to their young. The main ones I get to see are Humpbacks and Pilot Whales. You can see them breaching from a distance! But I've been lucky enough to be on a boat and get close. Whales are curious! They are hams, too!
What an adorable shirt!! I'd imagine whale enjoying a decadent chocolate cupcake... of course who wouldn't enjoy a delicious chocolate cupcake?!?
Whales breathe via blowholes; baleen whales have two and toothed whales have one. Also, the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale also is told in the Qur'an. {via Wikipedia}
hmnelson15{at}gmail{dot}com
Whales do not hoop for recreation, but if they did, they would need to use a hoop that was at least 55ft across (bigger or smaller depending on the whale's skill level!).
ssick1@gmail.com
Fun fact about whales: Humpback whales only eat in summer, feeding off their fat reserves during the winter.
I think it's pretty crazy that whales feed their young milk. I can't help but wonder, how does that work in the ocean?
Also, one of my son's favorite books is "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean" until a whale came along. A flimsy connection but there you go.
I went whale watching a couple years ago up in Newfoundland, Canada, and didn't see a single whale on the whole trip. I did however have a very handsome Irish tour guide, and got to see a lot of cute puffin birds, which almost made up for it :)
- Maggie
(email in case I win is: maggiekath at gmail.com)
I went to a whale show at an aquarium and got pooped on the head by a seagull. Talk about pooping!
mercedesbenz431@optonline.net
My girls and I went whale watching this summer. In addition to frequent spottings of a mother-calf pair of blue whales, we saw their poop floating on the water. It was bright red, apparently due to the krill they were feasting on. Who knew?
Saw a pod of whales from the ferry heading up to Shaw Island...sooo cool!!
tcampbell04@frontier.com
Whales would love a sardine cupcake...yep, I think so.
phoenixbakingco@gmail.com
I had the opportunity to go whale watching while in the 5th grade in Alaska. Pretty cool for a kid from Wisconsin since our Great Lakes don't hold too many whales.
kerry.kassie@gmail.com
cute shirt! Did you know that the killer whale, which I did a report on in 6th grade, actually belongs to the dolphin family? Some things you never forget!
kellyjean81 @ gmail.com
Oh that would be sucha great one to add to my collection of cupcake t-shirts!
Ooh, such a cute shirt!! While in Alaska last year we went on a wildlife-watching boat trip from Seward & saw lots of birds and dall's porpoises and glaciers. The highlight was definitely seeing both a finn whale and a humpback whale! Amazing creatures and amazing trip!
princessfreeona(at)gmail(dot)com
oh and my favorite song is baby baluga! sing it in my classroom all the time! bridget__b@hotmail.com forgot my e mail!
Awesome whale loving his cupcakes t-shirt! When our family took an Alaskan cruise, one of the highlights was actually seeing a whale breach. A breach is when a whale generates enough upward force with its flukes to raise two-thirds of its body out of the water. And I was the only one who caught it all on camera. Fantastic sight that I won't forget!
A blue whale’s tongue weighs around 6,000 pounds. Could you imagine how many cupcakes would fit in their mouth at once? That sure would be a lot of gefilte fish cupcakes with horseradish whipped cream! Their favorite of course.
bake.something@hotmail.com
holy hybrid batman! A wholphin is a rare hybrid, born from a mating of a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale. CRAZYSAUCE!
Love the shirt!
kristacalar27 at gmail dot com
Whales have pop songs! Whales can pick up songs from each other, and a catchy song can travel thousands of miles from whale to whale over a couple of years. http://www.cracked.com/article_19388_6-things-you-wont-believe-animals-do-just-like-us.html
My whale fact stems from my readings about breast feeding. Whale cows nurse by squirting milk, so fatty that it has the consistency of toothpaste, into the mouths of their young. It contains 40-65% milk fat, compared to just 4-5% for human or cows milk. Nursing continues for more than a year in many species.
Gabi@catsam.com
Male orcas live up to about 30 years, while females live up to 80 years. What a huge difference!
carmenshiu07[[@]]gmail[[dot]]com
The Blue Whale's heart is the size of a small car, its tongue the size of an African Elephant, and its major artery, the aorta, is large enough for a small child to climb through.
whale sharks are the biggest fish in the sea at 40 feet or more! and fortunately for us, they crave plankton, not cupcake-filled-bellies of humans! hooray!
Cute shirt! I recently saw a clip of a whale that was saved by some passerbys on a boat. The whale got tangled up in a fishing net, and was really struggling. The people, who I think were just going for a ride, so no experts to say the least, saw this whale was struggling, so they tried to untangle the whale. After several hours, and several attempts (meanwhile, getting the net off would be life or death for this creature), they did it. After the whale swam off, she came up out of the water several times, almost to give her heros a little "thank you." There's a video somewhere of it...good stuff!
kristin.ad.fisher@gmail.com
My whale fact is that I saw Keiko the killer whale from the Free Willy movies while visiting Iceland in the 2000. Scientists were trying to get him to hunt on his own and maybe get him to join a pod. However he kept returning to the cove. They were at a loss on how to get him to return to the wild. It was very sad....
I wonder if whales notice boats. Do fish/whales look at us like we watch them? Do they view boats like their own bath toys?
Where do whales sleep?
email: faultybrakes@gmail.com
A fin whale’s heart can weigh up to 500 pounds.. :)
The shirt is too cute! I found it interesting that sperm whales have the largest brains in the world- about seven times larger than the human brain! :) I did a little more researching and found out that "killer whales" aren't even whales- they're the largest species of dolphin! It got its name from actually killing whales for food. Wow.
You can contact me by emailing me at teacupstutus@yahoo.com :)
I'm going to go with a made-up factoid: I bet whales would LOVE chocolate cupcakes with nutella frosting :)
Oh that shirt is adorable!!
I recently went to the Shedd Aquarium with the bf and we sat and watched the belugas forever. They're so vocal and, surprisingly, jealous when another whale moves in on their trainer! We couldn't stop laughing!
My favorite will probably always be the orcas, though. =)
leraustin @ gmail . com
Just saw the water come out of the blow hole of whales in alaska. Beautiful. I think more interesting than poop is the way they feed with many whales creating a bubble net to surround fish and then eat the ones netted. Very clever
I learned last week at my lab meeting that humpback whales have a behavior where they scrape the sand along the bottom of the water to kick up hiding food to eat. They use one side of their nose to move the sand. Using trackers attached to the whale, scientists have discovered that individual whales prefer using one side over the other, just like humans have right/left handed preferences.
darragh204 (at) sbcglobal (dot) net
I watched "Finding Nemo" recently with my kids. They found the scene in which Dory (voiced by Ellen Degeneres) imitates whale talk absolutely hilarious! If you haven't seen this movie, or it's been a while since you've seen it, you should watch it or re-visit it.
And so, on that note, my whale fact is that Humpback whales use a form of song to communicate through the water. Sound travels over four times as fast in water than it does on land, making whale communication far quicker than human communication. Scientists have discovered that these songs are geographically specific because whales of the same area will often sing variations of the same songs, whereas whales from distant regions sing entirely different songs.
ackoacko1@netscape.net
I went whale watching in Cape Cod when I was in high school, and found out the cutest thing about humpbacks:
The babies (called calves, like cows, which I also thought was interesting) stay with the mother for a FULL YEAR before branching out on their own! :)
misscongeniality (at) gmail (dot) com
Oops! I was post #50. I gave you my incorrect info. It's actually:
ackoacko1@aim.com
We read everyone poops to my son when we were potty training him. He loved that book. I watched a TV show on a whale giving birth.
Fun fact: some male killer whales do not stay in familiar groups, and instead become transient individuals known as "Rovers". Killer whales also sometimes "play" with their food; younger whales have been documented literally throwing their food (i.e. seas and sea lions) to each other, but scientists aren't exactly sure why they do it, if its a learn-to-hunt exercise or social bonding or because they're whales so why not. Whales were my favourite part of mammology. :)
I can be reached at lovstrom at gmail dot com.
Narwhales are the only whales with teeth. They have a tooth hiden under the gums. Males have another tooth which sticks out from their head lke a tusk. This tusk can grow up to 8 feet long. I saw some in an Aquarium in Connecticut and they are incredible!
I love this shirt! Here is a fun fact: Sperm Whales have the largest brain on the planet. It may weigh 20 pounds.
My email is annieluh1@gmail.com
Crazy fact: Justin Beiber's song "You Smile" slowed 800% sounds like whales. Seriously. Google it and listen.
This shirt is adorable!
I have loved, loved, loved whales since I was a little girl and my favorite vacation was to Alaska. While taking a boat trip we had many whales breech and play with the boat. It was the most remarkable sight I have ever seen.
psrrn@aol.com
My comment has whales & poop (kinda)! :)
While at Target, my 2 3/4yr old daughter needed to be changed. As she stood up on the changing table, she looked into the mirror and said, "Do you speak whale?" from Finding Nemo. Out of the blue and hilarious!!
By the by, super cute t-shirt!!
Thanks Stef & Hey Cupcake Threads!!
Sandia Hoormann
sandia.hoormann@gmail.com
Love the shirt. Want to win!! Whales favorite game: Hide and Poop, no, I mean Hide and Seek....
plepoma@aol.com
When I think about whale watching I automatically think of Bill Engval's Whale watching skit!
http://youtu.be/GQFwur9JTiY
Just ignore the visuals.
brandyhelman@hotmail.com
Such a cute shirt!
Although the picture on the shirt leads you to believe otherwise, whales do not spout cupcakes (or water) from their blow holes! They are actually letting out air from their lungs. The warm air forms a cloud, like ours does in the winter. As it comes out it will also push any water which is covering the blow hole high into the air.
caitlinsredpup@gmail.com
I live in Hawaii and every year in elementary school we would go whale watching for one of our field trips. I can still remember how excited we would all get when a whale would jump out of the water and make a huge splash! :)
ticktock22@hotmail.com
What's NOT amazing about whales? I am tossed to tell you about 2 perticular whale events I just had this summer. The juvenile that was showing off and accidently thumped our boat with his flipper, or the bubble-net feeding experience. I chose the bubble-net story.
We were suppose to be fishing, but saw a pod of about 12 humpbacks bubble-net feeding which is crazy amazing! They go under water and disappear for about 10 minutes. They then all come up at the same time with mouths wide open. Their chin (throat grooves) expand enormously as they fill up with water and herring. When they are under they are chasing & corralling herring so you don't know where they are. It does help to watch the gulls because they can see the fish surfacing and want to grab a snack.
We were at the safe legal distance watching these things & trying to get the perfect photo op. This is not easy when you don't know where they will surface & when they do, it's fast!
The whales went down & the water is calm & quiet. The birds are circling and wondering where they are. All at once the birds swarmed our little 20ft boat. They were squaking & diving. Our boat's fish finder went black & before I could say "Oh S%&~@!!," the whales came up on all sides of our boat. Mouths open, throat grooves swishing & loud noise coming out of their blowholes, I saw this enormous flipper go right pass me. They were so careful to not touch our boat...CRAZY !! These things are as long as a tour bus! Our boat was going in circles from the current they were causing under us. Just like that, the whales left & continued feeding farther away. They are just amazing gentle giants! I am blessed to live in Juneau Alaska !!
ramentea@yahoo.com
Baby whales(calves) really weigh tons and grow at an exponential rate because from birth their mother feeds them a steady diet of krill cupcakes. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
C:
Whales love to eat curry! True fact.
Not really, it's a made-up fact. :)
Love your blog, love the shirt!
My whale fun fact: Jonah was spit out of the belly of a whale. I'm sure a scrumptious cupcake would never be spit out.
I saw a story today about Orca whales that eat great white sharks. I had no idea.
I think the Whales and cupcakes shirt is much sweeter.
What a cute shirt! I've never been on a whale watching tour. I've been too chicken to get on a small boat and see such a large creature.
I don't know much about whales so I had to google it and learned that a typical whale song last up to 30 minutes!
If I win I can be contacted through facebook at facebook.com/mthayer2
I adore that shirt! I love whales and dolphins and am a firm supporter of "save the dolphins and whales groups". But, my favorite fact about a whale is a bit inappropriate. It refers to the male organ, called a Dork. haha. I STOPPED calling my friends this when I found out. LOL
The worlds biggest mammal is the blue whale!!! My contact info...perrrla@cox.net
I think that if I could hear a whale sing it would be so awesome!
hammel@vnet.net
The so-called killer whales can be 32 ft long, weigh 6 tons, and have 50 dagger-like teeth. Surprisingly, despite their name, they are not whales but oversized dolphins!!
Whales are quite fantastic. They usually only eat plankton and bland fishy food, but on occasion, such as their nephew narwhal’s birthday, they’ll enjoy a scrumptious lemon or blueberry cupcake (though it must be topped with some shredded seaweed, of course).
tashi 4 @ mac.com
A single breath from a mature blue whale can inflate up to 2,000 balloons. I'm inviting one to my next birthday party!
boyer.d@gmc.edu
I adore this shirt... When you said to share a fun fact about whales (& this is totally off the wall) but I am a big antique road show fanatic and one of the most intriging pieces I've every seen shown was a silver hair brush and vanity set. It was found on a dive with a whaling ship and believed to belong to that captain's wife. But the bristles were made from whale baleen! I was amazed by the use of materials. There were so many uses of whale baleen from those times also that I'm sure I could bore you to death with from sewing needles to hair combs/pins!
2 fun facts:
Sperm whales are called sperm whales because the oil they got from them, spermaceti, looked like sperm, even though it came from the big bulgy nose area.
A blue whale's penis can be about 10 feet long.
Whale penis leather used to be used to make those golf club caddy things. gross.
melissa(dot)b(dot)gabehart(at)gmail(dot)com
a humpback whale can eat up to one ton of food a day! that's a lot of cupcakes :)
Maybe it's because it's my bedtime, but I think this fact from Wikipedia is really interesting.
"Unlike most animals, whales are conscious breathers. All mammals sleep, but whales cannot afford to become unconscious for long because they may drown. It is thought that only one hemisphere of the whale's brain sleeps at a time, so they rest but are never completely asleep."
Cute shirt!
fitinthemidwest@gmail.com
I once went whale watching in Maine. Though the weather was deceptively sunny, the was really rough, and people were seasick all over the ship. We didn't see any whales. They gave us free passes for another trip, but I don't think anyone wanted them...
Ironically, our friends who had skipped the whale watch to go kayaking actually saw whales. Go figure.
ADORABLE SHIRT! I'm going to do a completely made up whale fact. Whales love eating red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing while playing Super Mario Carts and Googling funny cat videos. And they love listening to Katy Perry.
zoe_dancer8@hotmail.com
My random factoid: orcas must like black and white cake the best because it looks like them. it's true. ask the nest one you meet... in the wilds of dallas! :-)
Love the shirt! I have always had a fascination with whales and any species of sea life. As a child, I remember going to the zoo and aquariums here in Oklahoma and whale watching. I defnitely think whales would enjoy chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting! :)
Love the shirt! I have always had a fascination with whales and any species of sea life. As a child, I remember going to the zoo and aquariums here in Oklahoma and whale watching. I defnitely think whales would enjoy chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting! :)
lilosubabe@yahoo.com
We went whale watching on our Alaskan cruise and actually saw an Orca eat a seal. It was mind-blowing!
The blue whale is not only the largest animal, it is also the loudest. The call of a blue whale can reach up to 188 decibels and be heard hundreds of miles away. That is almost three times as loud as a human can shout and even louder than a jet.
But of course, a whale is mammal... and not a fish! That's an easy fact. But my interesting fact is: a baby blue whale will gain 10 pounds an HOUR for the first several weeks of its life!
A whale's favorite cupcake would be calamari-cream.
and a little joke, just for fun =)
Q:Why did the whale cross the ocean?
A: to get to the other tide.
Whales can't sleep very long because they have to remember to surface to breathe. One half of their brain sleeps while the other is awake. Its the only way they can get the amount of sleep they need.... poor whales.
My 3 year old daughter listens to a "whale calls" (sounds of whales in the ocean) cd whenever she goes to bed at night (or nap). Recently she spent a weekend with her cousins, and apparently her uncle scared her about the whales- now she has to have a fish nightlight next to the cd player to protect her from the big whales, lol! I have yet to tell her the whales would probably eat them. But she's always preferred listening to them over any other cd! (zipfel@usc.edu)
Did you know bubblegum is made from whales blubber, and female whales are pregnant for one year! (i couldn't imagine)
---- > symonerudder@yahoo.com <------
Whales can't breathe through their mouths. The mouth is connected directly to the stomach. They breathe through their blow holes, which go to the lungs.
gumbicat@comcast.net
Whale's have only been known to birth twins in one instance. Whether they're identical or fraternal was a mystery.
I am not sure if you know this, but both whales and monkeys are avid believers and experts in extraterrestrial life forms. Whales favorite flavor is cotton candy while monkeys are partial to jalepeno icecream.
Carly(dot)alter(at)gmail
OMG that shirt is sooo cute!! I think the coolest thing about whales is their songs. Their songs can be heard as far away as 20 miles. Crazy!!
caragraf292@gmail.com
Wales blow bubbles (to confuse thier fishie prey before they eat them )& have strainers in thier mouths.
The Norwall whale is sometimes called the "unicorn of the sea" because of it's single horn on it's snout.
Cute shirt! :o)
ginnymac16@gmail.com
My Fun Fact about Whales: The voice of the blue whale is one of the deepest voices on the planet. It is so powerful that it can travel for perhaps a hundred miles underwater.
Chinese mythology involving a whale: In China, Yu-kiang, a whale with the hands and feet of a man was said to rule the ocean.
That's quite a stretch from Disney's Triton :)
I learned this one in high school biology...the blue whale has two ton testes.
ajstern22@yahoo.com
The beluga whale is called beluga or sea canary due to its high-pitched twitter. lauren.plemons@yahoo.com
Well, my whale fact is boring. Just that it's the loudest animal ever. But also because it's one of the biggest. One of the smallest loudest animals is Micronecta scholtzi.
Whales like salted caramel cupcakes because they're salty like the sea!
sarah.culleton@gmail.com
I love whales. I did a report on narwhals when I was younger and I think I remember that might be where the unicorn myth originated. Also the "horn" is actually a very overgrown tooth- kind of like baby chicks.
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