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Sperm Whale
Also called: Cachalot.
Images coming soon.
- Length
- 60-80 feet.
- Description
- Head oblong, level with the back on top and square and truncate in front, forming nearly one-third of the total length of the animal; lower jaw shallow and very narrow in front, armed with 22 to 24 large teeth on each side. Back with a hump on the neck and several humps farther back, but no dorsal fin. Colour black or blackish brown, lighter below, sometimes marbled.
- Range
- Tropical and subtropical oceans, now very rare in the North Atlantic.
The sperm whale or Cachalot is the largest of the toothed cetaceans, and in its great bulk recalls the whalebone whales, though the peculiar truncated head and narrow, shallow lower jaw, with its formidable array of teeth, serve easily to distinguish it. The nostrils of the sperm whale open at the extreme front of the head instead of farther back, as in the whalebone whales, and its "spout" issues diagonally forward instead of vertically upward. This peculiarity enables whalers to identify the sperm whale at very great distances.
This animal seems to feed at great depths and is able to remain under water longer than any other species--sometimes for over an hour at a time, according to Captain Scammon. When at the surface it respires thirty to sixty times at short intervals with great regularity and then, "Pitching head-foremost downward, turns his flukes high in the air and when gaining nearly a perpendicular attitude descends to a great depth."
The food of the sperm whale consists of various "squids" or cuttlefish. The "ambergris" discharged from its intestines is a valued article of perfume.