Minke Whales Were Named for an Inept Whale Spotter

You can reasonably infer the origin of the word "blue whale" when you hear it. Even though it's not the official name, it's not hard to guess what a killer whale is. What about a minke whale, though? It has a unique name that can be attributed to one of the rare times in nomenclature history when anything was given a name just to make fun of someone's intelligence.

Whaling used to be a widespread practise across many cultures. The minke whale was first domesticated by the Norwegian people, who have a long history of whaling. According to the legend, a guy named Meincke worked as a whale spotter on board a Norwegian whaling ship. He was allegedly new to his position and not particularly skilled either.

You may recall that he called out a blue whale, which, at roughly 200 tonnes, is the largest animal to have ever lived on the earth. Of course, it was discovered to be a minke whale instead of a blue whale, which weighs just about 8 tonnes. The crew began referring to them as Minke's whales in honour of the bad spotter because of his enormous error.