"note: the sperm whale is not a deep sea monster"

The Sperm Whale, looks like a normal whale, with a slightly different characteristics. To discover this magnificent whale you'll need to read a bit.

The Sperm Whale or Physeter Catodon is like the legend of Moby-Dick! He's the greatest living creature with teethes wandering on this world. The Sperm Whale, why is it called the sperm whale? Well, the Sperm Whale has a white-milky substance (Spermaceti) in his head and people first thought that it was sperm. That's why it has such an abnormal name. The Sperm Whale appears everywhere around the world and feeds itself with fish and squids. Especially Giant Squids, they seem to be his favorite meal! To catch these creature he sometimes need to dive 2200 meters under sea level.

Sperm Whales have a big head, especially the males. They don't have a smooth skin like many whales do, they actually have a rough gray colored back. But there are exceptions! There are also reports of albino whales, but these are very rare. Big creatures like dinosaurs had tiny little brains, but the Sperm Whale has one of the biggest brains on the planet (it weighs about 7kg). It's not proven that this makes them a smart creature. However if we keep count with his weight and the weight of a human and his brains, then the human has the biggest brains. The Sperm Whale also has a blowhole (close to the head) to get rid of the filtered water.

Sperm whales are predators and they have 20 to 26 pairs of sharp teethes with a size of 10 to 20 cm. However the use of these teethes isn't so clear, sometimes there are even whales without any teethes that were perfectly healthy. Scientists think that the main purpose of these teethes is to fight for a mating partner and not to eat squids or other deep sea fishes.

There is a great difference in size between a male and female Sperm Whale.
Male specimens can grow up to 16m to 18m. The female specimen can only grow up to 12m to 14m. The largest Sperm Whale that was measured had a size of 20 meters.

Sadly these Sperm Whales were hunted down after the Second World War, which means that they can become bigger. There is evidence of whales that reached lengths of 28m, but until now there haven't been spotted any Sperm Whale of this length. This means that the biggest whales that are still alive are the Fin whales and the Blue whales.

Sperm Whales give birth once every four or six years. The little Sperm Whale needs to be with his mother for at least 3 years and the puberty of a Sperm Whale lasts for ten years. They keep growing for about 50 years and then they stop growing. The life expectancy of a full grown Sperm Whale is eighty years.

Sperm Whales are very social animals and they travel in groups. The female Sperm Whales stay with the females, and the male Sperm Whales join a male group. A group of Sperm Whales can exist out of twelve or more individuals. The older the Sperm Whale becomes the more individual they become.

The female Sperm Whale has two enemies, humans and orkas, but it's extremely hard to kill a Sperm Whale. The Orcas don't come to kill the Female Sperm Whale, but for the young Sperm Whales who are defenseless. Therefore they make a circle to protect their young. The Male Sperm Whale could easily kill an orca and has no other enemy then humans.

Sperm Whales are big creatures and big creatures have to eat a lot. The Sperm Whale feeds itself with Giant Squids, Octopus and fish (The Sperm Whale eats 3% of his body weight every day). They are real squid killers however if they encounter colossal squids that can weigh up to 500 kg they can have a bit of a struggle. It isn't sure, but there scars have been found on the head of Sperm Whales that indicate attacks from Giant squids. They also feed on deep sea fishes like the Dragonfish and the Toothfish.

The large head of the Sperm Whale is a big mystery. Maybe it helps them to communicate with others over great distances, or it's used as an echolocator to locate its pray in dark waters. They are one of the deepest diving animals, they can go up to 3000m deep! The Sperm Whale can reach these unbelievable depths because of its special adaptations. It has 3 ton of blood that contains enough oxygen to reach these depths, it also has a flexible ribcage and it can slow down its hart rate to preserve valuable oxygen. However the Sperm Whale has bones and after to much diving these bones could get damaged by the pressure.

The population of Sperm Whales is unknown and some scientist believe that there are approximately around 200.000-2.000.000 Sperm Whales living in various oceans. However the hunt on the Sperm Whale for it's flesh and oil have decimated this specie. Sperm Whales can be aggressive and they've attacked ships in the past who tried to kill them.