492 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Family PHYSETERIDAE : Sperm Whales 



SPERM WHALE 

 PHYSETER CATODON Linnaeus 



Physeter catodon Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 76, 1758 ("In Oceano 



septentrionali," i. e., Kairsten, Orkney Islands). 

 SYNONYMS: Physeter macrocephalus Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 76, 



1758 ("In Oceano Europaeo"); Catodon (Meganeurori) krefftii Gray, Proc. Zool. 



Soc. London, 1865, p. 440 (Australian seas). 

 FIGS.: Townsend, 1930a, p. 16 (drawing); Matthews, 1938a, pis. 3-11 (drawings and 



photographs). 



The sperm whale is the only one of the whales in which there 

 is a great disparity in size between males and females. The 

 adult male may measure up to 17.5 meters, or nearly 60 feet, 

 while the female goes to about 10 meters, or about 33 feet, and 

 is much slenderer with a proportionally smaller head. The 

 male's enormous head forms nearly a third of the total length; 

 it is full and bulbous, the snout slightly rounded in front and 

 slightly overhanging the jaw. The single blow-hole is asym- 

 metrically placed on the left side near the tip of the rounded 

 snout. There is a low hump in the center of the back slightly 

 past the midlength, and it is succeeded by a few irregular and 

 smaller humps. The long, narrow jaw carries about 25 or 27 

 pairs of large blunt teeth, but the few often present in the 

 upper gum are very small and functionless. The general 

 color is dark bluish gray, often paling considerably below, 

 with white marbling about the lips. 



This whale, which was the chief object of pursuit during the 

 height of the American whaling period, was not hunted until 

 the early part of the eighteenth century, but from about 1712, 

 for a century and a half, the ships from Nantucket and New 

 Bedford and smaller numbers from France and Great Britain 

 followed it relentlessly in all the Seven Seas. It is a species 

 particularly of the tropical waters, but recent studies show 

 that "in summer there is a movement towards the temperate 

 seas of the hemisphere concerned. Pairing mainly takes place 

 during this migration and the females give birth to their young 

 in subtropical and temperate waters. A small proportion of 

 the males, though fully active sexually, leave the females at 

 the height of the pairing season and migrate alone into high 

 latitudes, later returning to temperate waters and joining the 



