Speaking of sperm whales, in fact, many friends are not strangers. Sperm whales are the undiscused king of diving among mammals, able to dive to depths of 2,900 meters in the ocean. The size of the sperm whale is also very large, the largest sperm whale can reach 20 meters long, 60 tons, such a huge is really unimaginable.
Many people are familiar with sperm whales because of their excrement, ambergris, which is a very high-grade spice and is very expensive on the market.
Sperm whale is called splem whale in English, and sperm translates directly into Chinese is sperm. The name sounds so indecent, it stems from a misunderstanding. When people first came to know sperm whales, they found that they had a lot of milky white, slippery liquid in their heads, and the sailors at the time were convinced that this must be the sperm of sperm whales. But now people can also know with common sense that this semen should not exist in the brain.
But the sperm whale's ding ding is really too big, almost half of their body length, that is, a 20-meter long sperm whale, the ding ding is taller than an adult man. After being shocked by this majestic tintin, the sailors at that time were even more convinced that the white lubricating liquid in the sperm whale's brain must be their semen.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > brain oil for sperm whales</h1>
If you have to say it, sperm whales are really treasures from beginning to end, from brain oil to their own feces. Whalers have long ago discovered that whales are so useful that they not only have very fat whale flesh and fat, but they also have a substance in their brains that is very suitable for combustion, which is not easy to deteriorate, and the flame when it burns is very bright, and there is no black smoke.
At the time, people thought that this white viscous liquid was the semen of sperm whales, but it was actually their brain oil. The melting point of whale brain oil is close to the body temperature of sperm whales, and the main ingredient is cetyl hexadecanoate, which is now the raw material in many skin care products and cosmetics.
These substances in the sperm whale's head have been found to be used as lubricants, lamp oils and candles, and are very high-quality lighting tools. This whale brain oil is a single-chain wax ester, which burns with an unusually bright flame, is very stable, and is very suitable for preservation.
Sperm whale's brain oil illuminates people, but it plunges its fate into infinite darkness. Sperm whales are very large, and their brains are also very large, and the brain alone occupies one-third to one-quarter of the weight of the body, so the contents of their brains must also be very heavy. A sperm whale is said to have 1,000 liters of brain oil in its brain. When whalers catch sperm whales, they cut off their heads and open a hole to allow sperm whales' brain oil to flow into the barrel. This brain oil condenses into a sponge-like substance on its own when it is cold, and people can use it to make liquid sperm whale oil.
For sperm whales, their brain oil effect is also quite important, which can help sperm whales regulate their buoyancy, floating or sinking. When the brain oil changes from liquid to solid, the head uses this to adjust buoyancy. Therefore, sperm whales can dive so deep into the seabed, which is inextricably linked to their brain oil.
With such a huge size, sperm whales have no natural enemies in the ocean, but after being coveted by humans, sperm whales were hunted by humans on a large scale. Although mass whale hunting has been banned in the last century, sperm whales are still very endangered
In addition to the brain oil that is mistaken for semen is an important raw material in human life, another kind of excrement of sperm whales is deeply loved by humans. It's not accurate to say that it's feces, but ambergris is actually a stone of sperm whales. When the sperm whale swallows the squid into its stomach, the squid's jaw is difficult to digest, and it accumulates over time to form stones, which combine with the sperm whale's feces and are subsequently excreted. Ambergris looks like gray stones, and there are often stories of fishermen picking up ambergris by the sea.
Humans are quite strange. He is interested in both the "semen" and "feces" of whales and is regarded as a treasure.
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