Call me Cachalot, or Sperm Whale if You Must Quiz

Answer: brain

Cachalots (pronounced cash-uh-lots) could take an entire page in the "Guinness World Records" book if a whale enthusiast ever got on the editorial staff there. Their brains (about five times the size of a human's) are not just huge because they are big animals. Their brains are also proportionately larger than anything alive. The portions of the brain controlling smell and taste are reduced but hearing is keenly developed which is not surprising as it is believed they use their calls both to communicate and as echolocation for hunting.

There are a few larger whales but all are baleen filter feeders making the cachalot the world's largest toothed predator. Giant squid actually have the largest eyes on earth. The mighty blue whale outdoes the cachalot slightly on size for tail and blowhole. Though it is a tough comparison on the latter because their blowhole is one of several features which makes a cachalot very easy to identify at a distance. It is S-shaped and pointed at a 45-degree angle to vertical which gives a very distinct spray pattern.

Answer: early whalers believed the whale's head contained sperm

Cachalots have a large cavity in their head filled with an oily, yellowish-white liquid. Early whalers believed this was a massive sperm reservoir so the substance was dubbed spermaceti, and the name sperm whale naturally followed.

Incidentally, the German word for head is "kopf" and sperm is "sperma". Not much chance for such a low-grade international incident there.

Answer: about 30% longer and three times heavier

Males and females are born the same size, about three meters (11 feet) long, but the boys rapidly begin to outgrow the girls and develop the elongated, bulkier head for ramming enemies (would-be predators, or for the last few centuries, whaling ships). Adult males end up 16-21 meters (50-70 feet) and tip the scales at over 40,000 kilograms (45 short tons) while females reach 11-12 meters (35-40 feet).

Of course, sea stories being what they are, tales of huge whales exist. The cachalot which retaliated against and sank the whaler Essex, for instance, was estimated to be 85 feet long by sailors on board, but the likelihood that, under duress, they may have been prone to exaggeration seems high.

Answer: giant sea squid

There are plenty of artist renditions of the epic battle between whale and squid. Sometimes the large squid prevails and escapes, leaving sucker marks and permanent scars on the whale, but often the cachalot gets the better of even very largest squid and swallows it whole.

The cachalot has four stomachs. The first is a holding chamber with a thick, muscled wall for crushing live prey. It can also withstand the last thrashings of the prey, particularly the claw attacks of squid. The latter three stomachs carry out the more familiar gastric digestion.

Cachalots could eat any of the wrong choices and not suffer much for the barbs, stings and other defensive measures available to these creatures, however, they would make a fairly small meal. This is another area where our understanding of exactly what these whales do in the deep is thin. It is not known exactly how they lure or otherwise get the better of smaller, faster prey, but in any case, they are deep hunters where all three wrong answers dwell near the surface.

Not surprisingly, cachalots are prolific eaters, downing nearly a ton of food every hour. They are unable to digest the beaks of squid and the dissected remains of one cachalot were found to have about 18,000 of them in its stomachs.

Answer: orca (killer whale)

The size of a cachalot makes it a daunting target for predation. Even great white sharks are fended off pretty effectively. Orca attacks target young, wounded, or sick whales. Even so, they attack in large groups and it is no easy meal.

If they attack a full pod, the cachalots display a curious defensive stance. The females will form a ring known as a marguerite. The calves (or vulnerable adults) are protected in the center, the adults forming a ring around them with their tails out. From above or below, the scene looks roughly like the world's largest asterisk (or like the flower it is named after).

Females also dive in rotation so calves are never left alone.

Answer: True

It is known as ambergris, a strange soft material found in the later stomachs of a small number of whales. It is believed to be an adaptation in the whale's body as a defense against the sharp squid beaks which the whales cannot digest. (Such beaks are often found in masses of ambergris). The preferred method of expelling these beaks is to vomit them forth, sometimes with a clump of ambergris attached, though they can be passed through the system as well. When first expelled (out of either end, but obviously more so from the back) ambergris will have a notable fecal odor...eventually this fades while floating at sea and gives way to what is described as an earthy but sweet smell. At this stage, it can be processed and saw extensive use in the perfume industry as a fixative (to make the scents last longer).

It can only be acquired by chance findings at sea or washed up on a beach and was said at one time to be worth more than gold. (Hunting the whales exclusively for it was just not practical as only 1% of whales produce it, though of course, the guts of dead whales found by chance or by whalers were often searched.) Demand has dropped sharply as synthetic equivalents were developed to provide a larger and more reliable supply but ambergris is still used in the perfume industry to a limited degree and you will periodically hear stories of a found clump going for a huge price at auction so keep your eyes peeled while walking on the beach! (However if you really do find some, check your local laws first. Some countries have a strict ban on sale of ambergris as a secondary means of protecting whales.)

Answer: just over 2000 meters

Cachalots typically hunt around 500 meters down, but they regularly go deeper looking for squid, and one was found 2250 meters (7740 feet) deep. Dives typically last for 90 minutes but have been known to approach two hours.

The whales have a soft rib cage which allows for compression at the extreme pressures experienced at such depths. Any submariner will tell you about an old novelty trick of tying a string taut from side to side of the hull while shallow, and then watching it sag considerably as depth increases on a dive.

The spermaceti reservoir is also thought to play a part in the diving process. The liquid can solidify into a waxy solid which is thought to be used for buoyancy control.

Answer: mostly by males sparring with other males

There does seem to be some possible vestigial history with cachalot teeth. Both the upper and lower jaws have teeth but the upper ones rarely emerge. What most cachalots display outwardly is an odd looking arrangement in human terms. The lower jaw is less than a quarter of the width of their head and the huge teeth fit into sockets in the upper jaw.

Scarring seen regularly on older males seems to match the size and shape of these teeth better than shark teeth or any other would-be attackers. The teeth can also be used to hold stubborn prey before swallowing or to carry prey to young not yet able to catch their own alone.

The teeth continue to grow throughout the whale's life and gain rings which can be used in the same way as tree rings to accurately determine age.

Answer: 60-70 years

Over such a long life in a harsh environment a lot of things can cut them out short but many live this long.

Answer: females, young adult males and babies in pods, older males solitary except mating time

Pod sizes tend to be 12-20 whales total. Females can have babies throughout their lives, usually not more often than every four years. Young are nurtured in a maternal community for about ten years until they reach full maturity. Young adult males stay with the groups all year though they may switch from pod to pod. Older males go off on their own outside of the mating season.