Sperm Whale
(Physeter macrocephalus)
The Sperm Whale is a large whale found worldwide in every ocean. The Sperm Whale is the largest toothed predator on earth measuring up to 66 ft (20 m) in length and weighing up 45 tons. The Sperm Whale's skin is dark gray, though some whales have a few white spots on the belly. The Sperm Whale has a very long, block-shaped head making up to around 1/3 of the whale’s total body. The Sperm Whale 's large head contains the biggest brains on Earth weighing 17 lbs (8 kg), five times heavier than a human’s brain.
The Sperm Whales have very poor eyesight, so they rely on high frequency sound for communication and for hunting down their prey. This form of communication is known as echolocation, which is the process of sending clicks which are of high frequency and then listening to the pitch which bounces back. One of these clicks holds the record for the most intense sound pressure ever recorded from an animal at 233 decibels, which is louder than any NASA rocket.
For hundreds of years, the Sperm Whale was hunted for its oil and blubber. The Sperm Whale was hunted almost to extinction by whalers from the end of WW2 until 1985, when the International Whaling Commission signed a treaty that almost completely stopped Sperm Whale hunting. Sperm Whale still face a number of threats today, including entanglement in fishing nets and collisions with ships. For these and other reasons the IUCN lists the Sperm Whale as Threatened.
To learn more about the Sperm Whale and current conservation efforts click the link below: