Figure 1. A 16th-Century Impression of a Whale (by Konrad Gesner).
Notice the four large human-like breasts, the two long tubes on top of the head, the beetling brow, the misplaced giant eye, the teeth and the doglike snarling facial expression, the rays in the tail. None of these exist in any known modern whale or dolphin or porpoise. All modern whales, dolphins, and porpoises have two teats, at the genital slit only, which are long and narrow, not hemispherical; the blowhole slits are flush with the skin at the true forehead; the relatively small eyes are at the posterior angle of the jaw; baleen whales have no teeth; large toothed whales have only a few teeth; no “facial” expression is detectable on whales, dolphins, or porpoises; the tale flukes of all species are smooth skinned, not rayed like a fish.
NAVTAE IN DORSA CETORVM, QVAE INSVLAS PVTANT,
anchoras figentes sæpe periclitantur. Hos cetos Trolual sua lingua
appellant, Germanice Teüffelwal.
Figure 2. An Improved Portrayal of a Whale (Gilliam van de GouWen, 1598).
Apparently this is a toothed whale, a sperm whale. The lower body (flukes, penis, lower jaw and moth and teeth) is quite accurate. The ear is fanciful, as is the eye.
Figure 3. Whaling in the 19th Century.
Sperm whale being lanced and blowing blood. (Painting in the collection of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Mass.; copy through the courtesy of Phillip Purrington, Curator.)