Conny meets you out front before you enter The Children’s Museum. Climb inside this 60-foot long sperm whale replica and get sprayed by water from his blow hole when he spouts during the summer month.
Conny, a life-sized replica of a sperm whale, has sat outside our museum for almost 40 years. Conny has been a favorite of museum visitors – and passers-by.
Here are the facts about Conny the whale:
- The sperm whale is Connecticut’s state animal
- Conny is a male. Male sperm whales are bigger than females, and at 60 feet long, Conny could only be a guy. Female sperm whales max out at about 45 feet. Toothed whales (sperm whales, dolphins) have males that are larger, but in baleen whales (blue whales, humpback whales) the ladies are bigger.
- Just like a real sperm whale, Conny only has teeth in his lower jaw.
- Also like his real world cousins, Conny’s blowhole is a little bit to the left on the top of his head.
- Unlike Conny, real whales don’t squirt water out of their blowholes. They do exhale air from their lungs, which is moist and hot. When their breath hits the cold air at the surface, it forms fog, just like you do when you breathe out on a cold day.
- Conny is made out of a combination of iron and cement. (aka “ferrocement”. “Ferro” = “iron”)
- Conny was built in 1976 by volunteers from The Cetacean Society. (“Cetacean” = whale.) To learn more about them at Cetacean Society International visit their website.
