This juvenile sperm whale skeleton has been on display in Manchester Museum since 1898, and was found washed up on the sea ice near Massachusetts in 1896. The skeleton was bought for £60 and shipped across the Atlantic to Manchester docks in three huge crates.
Sperm whales can grow up to more than 18 metres in length. They are usually found in deep waters and are comparatively slow swimmers - travelling at less than 7 kph. Sperm whales have been known to dive to a depth of 500 metres hunting for giant squid, and can hold their breath for up to 90 minutes at a time.
Sperm whales are the largest of all the toothed whales, and also have the largest brains (up to 9 kg in weight) in the animal kingdom. However the huge head houses not only their brain, but also contains a cavity filled with a fine oil called spermaceti. Spermaceti plays an important role navigation and sonar - their ability to ‘see with sound‘. Unfortunately, spermaceti is also the reason why they were so heavily hunted by whalers over the last century; this oil was used in lamps, candles, creams, and more. Shockingly, during the whaling era, as many as one million sperm whales are estimated to have been killed although their numbers are now slowly recovering.
