Ocean Watch

Sometimes I get stalled choosing a subject for this column, but other times, a subject chooses me.

During research for my recent columns about ambergris and the right whales featured in the New Zealand film "Whale Rider," I found stories about sperm whales. Then a reader sent me a news article headlined "Chilean Experts Say Beached 'Blob' a Sperm Whale." The report said that people at first thought the creature was a giant octopus.

Now sperm whales had my attention. I mean, how could anyone mistake one for an octopus?

Easy, it turns out, when all that's left of the whale is a 40-foot-long gelatinous mass inside a bag of skin.

This big bag of fat, found on a remote Chilean beach, didn't resemble a whale, but when Santiago researchers looked into it (so to speak), they discovered glands found only in sperm whales.

Globs of dead sperm whales aren't often found on beaches, but they are a natural occurrence.

When a sperm whale dies at sea, it remains floating while its internal organs decay inside the tough skin. Eventually, the skin tears and the bones fall out and sink.

The bulbous spermaceti organ, however, located in the whale's forehead, keeps its bulky shape and remains floating inside the skin casing, still buoyant with blubber.

These parts, too, eventually decay, usually at sea but sometimes ashore.

Whenever the subject of sperm whales comes up, so does Melville's Moby Dick, the monster sperm whale that ate sailors and smashed ships. In reality this vulnerable and benign species mostly ignores humans.

Today, these 40- to 50-foot-long whales are common whale-watching attractions, especially in New Zealand.

One of the reasons sperm whales had a fierce reputation is their possession of conical teeth measuring up to 8 inches long. The lower jaws only bear 40 to 50 teeth, which fit into sockets in the upper jaw.

Sperm whales use their teeth to grab prey, usually squid, and then swallow it whole. Researchers once found a giant squid, 40 feet long and weighing 440 pounds, intact in a sperm whale's stomach.

Sperm whales range from Northern pack ice to Southern pack ice, which means they occasionally pass through Hawaiian waters.

Mostly, they are spotted in the Northwest Chain, but sometimes people see them off the Big Island's Kona coast.

Sightings are rare events, but you can get a feel for the magnificence of these creatures by visiting the Bishop Museum. There, an enormous sperm whale skeleton hangs from the ceiling. Alive, the animal weighed 50 tons.

Sperm whales are widely known for stranding themselves on beaches. Sometimes they come ashore alone; other times, they do it in heartbreaking groups.

In 1998 a pod of 54 sperm whales beached themselves in Tasmania. No one could move the 50-ton creatures, and none survived.

Hey, wait a minute. Sperm whales frequent New Zealand waters, have big white teeth respected in Maori culture, are famous for stranding and have boxcar-shape heads that a person, if you stretch the imagination, might possibly ride. These facts might make a good movie.

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