11. Its Suspended Blue Whale Was Once Anatomically Inaccurate
If you were to look up in the Hall of Ocean Life, you’d see a 94-foot-long blue whale suspended from the ceiling, which has been there since 1969. That figure used to be an inaccurate representation of a blue whale, since researchers only based their measurements off a dead whale that was washed ashore in 1925 on Georgia Island.
Once researchers could study a living version of the whale, they found that their previous measurements were off. After the museum was renovated in the early 2000s, the Hall of Ocean Life reopened in 2003. It now had a more anatomically accurate whale with shaved down eye sockets, a trimmed tail, a lip around its blowhole, a naval, and gallons of new paint.