50 Fun Facts About Sperm Whale

Which organ of the sperm whale is the largest of its kind in any animal, living or extinct?

The brain of a sperm whale weighs about 7 kg (15 lb), more than five times as much as a human's. A bigger one does not automatically mean a smarter animal, though.

In which surprising position do pods of sperm whales nap, drifting just below the surface?

Vertically, with heads near the surface, is how sperm whales doze. A 2008 study found some of them are in deep sleep for only about 7 percent of the time.

Which waxy lump from a sperm whale's gut, sometimes found on beaches, is prized by perfume makers?

Ambergris smells foul when fresh, yet perfume makers value it because it makes a scent last much longer. Only about one sperm whale in a hundred is thought to produce it.

Sperm whales make their long dives into the dark deep sea mainly to hunt which prey?

Squid make up most of a sperm whale's meals, and a whale eats about 3% of its body weight every day. As many as 18,000 undigested beaks have been found in one stomach.

In the novel Moby-Dick, which captain obsessively hunts the white sperm whale that bit off his leg?

Ahab commands the whaleship Pequod and nails a gold coin to the mast as a prize for the first sailor to sight the white whale. The chase ends with the whale sinking his ship.

Which giant sperm whale swallows the woodcarver Geppetto in Disney's 1940 animated film Pinocchio?

Monstro keeps Geppetto trapped in his belly until Pinocchio makes him sneeze them out. Deep-voiced singer Thurl Ravenscroft supplied the whale's sounds.

In SpongeBob SquarePants, which teenage daughter of the crab Mr. Krabs is, oddly, a sperm whale?

Pearl lives with her father in a hollow anchor. Creator Stephen Hillenburg, a marine biologist, got the idea for a whale character while supervising whale watches in California.

Where on its huge square head does the sperm whale have its single, S-shaped blowhole?

On the left of the snout tip is where the blowhole sits, so a sperm whale's bushy spout shoots forward at an angle instead of straight up.

Sperm whales are the loudest animals on Earth, but which kind of sound do they make?

Clicks made in a sperm whale's nose reach 236 decibels underwater, and the echoes that bounce back reveal prey in total darkness.

Which US state made the sperm whale its official state animal in 1975, honouring its whaling past?

Connecticut ranked second only to Massachusetts in American whaling during the 1800s, sending ships around the globe from New London and Mystic.

Which name is given to pictures that sailors engraved on sperm whale teeth during long voyages?

Scrimshaw began as a way to pass idle hours at sea: whalers scratched pictures into a tooth with a sailing needle, then rubbed in pigment to make the lines stand out.

Mocha Dick, a real white sperm whale feared by whalers, was named for an island off which country?

Chile's Mocha Island gave the scarred white whale his name. By one account he survived at least 100 clashes with whalers before he was finally killed in 1838.

In which Pacific nation are polished sperm whale teeth, called tabua, prized as ceremonial gifts?

Fiji's tabua are traditionally given as gifts of atonement or esteem, and they once helped to settle negotiations between rival chiefs.

Kaikōura, one of the world's best-known places to watch sperm whales, is a town in which country?

New Zealand's Kaikōura lies near a deep undersea canyon. Its whale-watch business began when local Māori families mortgaged their homes to fund one small boat.

The sperm whale is the largest toothed whale, a group that also includes which smaller sea mammals?

Dolphins and porpoises are toothed whales too, catching prey one at a time rather than filtering mouthfuls of water as the big baleen whales do.

Like which land animal do sperm whale females and young live in families while males live apart?

Elephants and sperm whales both build their herds around the females, while grown males wander off alone and come back mainly to breed.

While a sperm whale mother makes a long feeding dive, who usually guards her calf at the surface?

Other pod members babysit while the mother hunts, and calves have even been seen suckling from females that are not their own mothers.

How do sperm whales arrange themselves to shield a calf or injured companion from attackers?

In a circle, heads together and tails pointing out like the petals of a daisy, is the classic defence. It is called the marguerite formation, after the flower.

The oil from a sperm whale's head was once the finest material for making which household item?

Candles made of spermaceti burned so brightly and evenly that an 1860 British law used one as the measuring stick for light, creating the unit called candlepower.

Adult male sperm whales weigh about three times as much as females and are known by which name?

Bulls keep growing until about age 50, decades after the females stop, and end up as much as half as long again as their mates.

Where do the biggest male sperm whales spend most of the year, far from the females and calves?

Cold polar waters offer richer feeding, so males drift toward the poles as they age, while the females and young stay in warmer waters all year.

Sperm whale milk is so rich in fat that its thick texture is compared to which dairy food?

Cottage cheese is the usual comparison: the milk is about 36% fat, against 4% in cow's milk, so it holds together in seawater long enough for the calf to drink it.

Tags show that sperm whales chase prey at the bottom of deep dives while swimming in which position?

Upside down, a sperm whale may be able to look up and pick out its prey as dark shapes against the faint light from the surface.

Most big whales have smooth skin, but how does the skin on a sperm whale's back usually look?

Wrinkled skin covers much of a sperm whale behind the head, and whale watchers liken it to a giant prune.

What are the two lobes of a sperm whale's tail, lifted high out of the water before a dive, called?

Flukes on a sperm whale are triangular, very thick and, relative to its body, larger than those of any other whale.

Sperm whale poo fertilises the sea surface, feeding which tiny drifters that soak up carbon?

Phytoplankton thrive on the iron in sperm whale droppings, then take up carbon from the air and carry it to the deep sea when they die and sink.

In Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, which submarine attacks a group of sperm whales?

Nautilus charges into the sperm whales, which Verne paints as savage hunters, to protect a pod of southern right whales.

How does the pygmy sperm whale, a much smaller cousin of the sperm whale, try to escape predators?

It releases an inky cloud: a sac in its gut holds up to 12 litres of reddish-brown fluid that it squirts out to confuse an attacker.

Which New England island became a famous home port for sperm whalers during the 1700s?

Nantucket turned deep-sea whaling into a rich industry in the 18th century, sending crews on voyages that lasted years and reached as far as the South Pacific.

Which part of a sperm whale's body is the longest of its kind in the animal kingdom?

The intestine of a large sperm whale can run to more than 300 metres, about three times the length of a football pitch.

Pitted bones in old sperm whales suggest they can suffer which illness better known in scuba divers?

The bends, or decompression sickness, comes from surfacing too fast. Older sperm whale skeletons show the most damage, while those of calves show none.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a sperm whale suddenly appears in mid-air beside which object?

A bowl of petunias and the whale are what two nuclear missiles turn into when the starship Heart of Gold fires its improbability drive above the planet Magrathea.

In 1970, highway officials in which US state blew up a beached sperm whale with dynamite?

Oregon's Highway Division hoped the blast would leave pieces small enough for scavengers to eat. Instead large chunks of blubber landed near buildings and in car parks some distance away.

Sperm whales roam every ocean, but which sea's shallow entrance seems to keep them out?

The Black Sea is reached only through narrow, shallow straits, and its deeper layers lack oxygen and are rich in hydrogen sulphide.

Where in a sperm whale's mouth do all of its large, cone-shaped teeth grow?

The lower jaw is long and narrow, and its teeth slot into sockets in the upper jaw when the mouth shuts. Each tooth can weigh as much as a kilogram.

Which Caribbean island is home to a research project following sperm whale families since 2005?

Dominica has sperm whales living off its coast all year round, which makes the island a magnet for whale watchers as well as scientists.

Until the 1970s, sperm whale oil was a prized additive in the fluid for which part of American cars?

The transmission ran smoothly on the oil because it stayed stable at high heat. After sperm whales were listed as endangered, jojoba oil proved a good plant-based stand-in.

Which musical term names the short rhythmic patterns that sperm whales exchange when socialising?

Codas differ from clan to clan much as dialects do, and young whales learn them from their family group rather than being born knowing them.

Which other name for the sperm whale is the everyday word for the animal in French and Russian?

Cachalot reached English through French, and the Russian word kashalot keeps it too. Its origin is uncertain, though one theory links it to an old word for big teeth.

Which extinct sperm whale relative had the largest biting teeth of any known animal?

Livyatan hunted off Peru about nine million years ago and, unlike the sperm whale, had teeth in both jaws, the biggest more than 36 cm (14 in) long.

Which blunt name is given to the oil-filled tissue below the main wax organ in a sperm whale's head?

The junk, despite its name, is packed with spermaceti, and its cartilage walls may help to protect the skull when a sperm whale rams something.

Which oxygen-storing muscle protein lets a sperm whale hold its breath for more than an hour?

Myoglobin is far more abundant in a sperm whale's muscles than in a land animal's, and that reserve lets the longest dives run to about two hours.

Scientists gave which animal nickname to the sound-making flaps inside a sperm whale's nose?

Monkey lips, formally called phonic lips, snap together as air is forced through them. Sperm whales have a single pair, while every other toothed whale has two.

Until 1862, sperm whale oil lit the lamps of which buildings run by the United States government?

Lighthouses burned the oil for its bright flame, then switched to lard oil, which was itself soon replaced by petroleum.

Which land animal is the closest living relative of whales such as the sperm whale?

The hippopotamus and the whales share a semi-aquatic ancestor that lived more than 50 million years ago, which is why whales are grouped with the even-toed hoofed mammals.

What happens to a sperm whale's lungs during a very deep dive?

They collapse safely because the ribs are joined to the spine by flexible cartilage, which lets the ribcage fold instead of snapping.

In which Asian country do the villagers of Lamalera still hunt sperm whales for their own food?

Indonesia's Lamalera, on the island of Lembata, has hunted this way for centuries, and custom says the crew must row a caught whale back to shore.

In 2004, a dead sperm whale burst open on a truck in a city centre on which Asian island?

Taiwan's city of Tainan saw shopfronts, cars and bystanders splattered after gas built up inside the carcass while it was being driven to a nature reserve for study.

Which naturalist formally described the sperm whale in his 1758 book Systema Naturae?

Carl Linnaeus at first listed four species of sperm whale. Experts soon realised there is only one, then argued for a long time over which of his names it should keep.

Which sailor narrates the hunt for the great white sperm whale in the novel Moby-Dick?

Ishmael survives to tell the tale in an epilogue. The first British edition omitted it, so reviewers complained that the story was told by a man who had drowned.