10 Interesting Facts About Sperm Whales

Sperm whales are the largest toothed predators alive. In this video, we go over ten interesting facts about these magnificent marine mammals.

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#SpermWhale #Evolution #SeaCreatures

[Nerom]

This is a very, very well done video as someone who's a 4th-year biology major and a cetacean enthusiast. Sperm whales are my favorite animal. However, on the sexual dimorphism section there's a minor error I want to correct. This video is correct regarding some of the masses, but the lengths could use some adjustments. So at this point 6:25

12 meters wouldn't be ''average'' for a female sperm whale, that would be closer to the maximum sizes for females. The average for females is closer to 10-11 meters, but that's honestly not a big deal compared to the range of sizes for males. There are some records insisting on females approaching male-like sizes of over 15+ meters, but that's liable to be a misidentification of the sex. The mass is fine, as females having been recorded ranging from 10-20 tonnes.

I'm actually gonna skip the ''average male'', and move on to the maximum size, because there's some important stuff I want to get across. The largest male reliably measured was indeed about 21 meters, as a bull caught off the Kuril Islands in 1950 was 20.7 meters. We even have physical evidence of other males of similar size as some museums own sperm whale jawbones over 5 meters in length, which would correspond to whales of over 20 meters. The issue here, which is something that unfortunately happens a lot when reporting maximum morphometric data on whales, is that the maximum length and weight don't correspond to the same individual. Weighing whales was a big hassle for whalers, so not every whale was weighed, especially the largest ones. The sperm whale that weighed 57 metric tonnes was an 18.1 meter sperm whale. A similar situation is true for other whales, as the heaviest blue whale to be weighed was only 27.6 meters and the heaviest fin whale was about 22.7 meters, both below the maximum known lengths. Furthermore, the largest whales were weighed piecemeal, and fluid loss would result in a 10% loss for sperm whales ( comparative studies on smaller sperm whales have found underestimations as large as 15% from piecemeal weighings). So the sperm whale that weighed 57 tonnes piecemeal likely weighed 63 tonnes while intact. A 20.7-meter whale would weigh around 80 tonnes.

Now as for the ''average'' male, even 18 meters would be exceptional for a physically mature sperm whale. On average, a physically mature sperm whale would be 16-meters, which amazingly takes around 50 years of its life to reach. This video is correct, however, that an average physically mature male would be about 42 metric tons.

Now outside of all of this, this video was pretty great, easy to recommend.

[assassinzakral]

My girlfriends face when she realized her perfume has ambergris in it was priceless after I showed her this video lol

[arkboi]

Three more fun facts:
1) Sperm Whale's echolocation is omnidirectional and can also be narrowed down to a precise beam.
2) Sperm Whale's echolocation is so powerful, that when researches swam with a pod, they could feel the echolocation clicks pounding throughout their entire body. In only a couple of minutes, their core temperatures increased by 3 degrees F.
3) Sperm Whales, like Humpback Whales, Southern Right Whales, and Gray Whales; are exceptionally inquisitive of and friendly towards humans.

[recreational_fish]

5:41 Did anyone else notice Nemo, Dory and Marlin?

[Verativity]

It makes sense that sperm whales have the largest brain in the animal kingdom - their scientific name is 'Macrocephalus', which translates as 'big head'. It almost sounds like a playground insult... "hey, big head!"

[BusterBuizel]

Normal People: Sperm Whale

Me, an intellectual: Semen Cetacean

[dirandrous]

So there are Sperm Whale relatives that produce ink? The more you know, eh?

[victoralcantar]

I’m amazed by the fact of the ink-producing abilities of the smaller Physeteroideans. How long have we known that? Convergent evolution is always awesome!

[NaturesCompendium]

Hello everybody! This video took longer than I initially anticipated, and I hope the wait was worth it. As usual, all sources I used for the video are listed in the description.

Sperm whales are truly fascinating animals, and I hope that the ten facts I present here encourage people to learn more!

Let me know what your favorite fact is, and be sure to checkout these videos for a more detailed look into ambergris and how it is formed:

[Albert_Herring]

One sperm whale got teleported in an alien planet with a bowl of petunias.

[brandonshmandon]

Good to see this channel again, especially on the topic of sperm whales. The evolution of the animals is especially interesting.

[davidneal]

1:29 I have never in my 31 years of being on this earth Have ever heard of or even knew of a pygmy and dwarf sperm whale this is the 1st time in my life I've ever heard of those. Not even on Blue Planet do I ever recall one being mentioned Great Video!

[Colourmestressfree]

Absolutely fantastic content! Thank you so much ☺️

[McHeisenburger]

This channel may only have two videos as of now, but I can tell it’s going places.

[blondbraid]

For some reason, everything else about Sperm Whales just makes me think "yep, that's just how they do it", but somehow, them sleeping vertically in a floating ring just weirds me out immensely.

[dynamosaurusimperious]

Basically back when SharkZilla was a thing, some whale had to use creative mode to get some interesting modifications to make they either faster, stronger or cooler and the Killer Sprem Whale, chose the stornger route, but when it and SharZilla went extinct, the Sperm Whale was still a strong and cool whale, but not as terrifying as the Killer Sprem Whale.

Also beautiful animation.

[revankith]

5:52 Dory, Marlin and Nemo drifted off and managed to get a cameo on this video

[adamdorris]

That was genuinely a very well produced mini documentary.
Thank you. Subscribed.
Awesome.

[kanserthecrab]

The Sperm Whale is smart enough to build a cobblestone generator in one episode

[aerolink]

Really enjoying the art style and animation! Great work!