Whales are born in the sea
Return to the sea
Longer than the sea
Hidden in the sea
A whale falls on all things
Wu Zhiyue Wang Qiankun / Wen
Fujian, tectonically close to the junction of the Eurasian Plate and the Pacific Plate, the division of zoogeography belongs to the Eastern Ocean Boundary. Since ancient times, with its superior climatic conditions and good ecology, it has attracted a variety of animals to settle here for a long time, forming a complex category and a huge population, which uses the colorful light of life to form a common world with the development and progress of human beings.
The dean of this issue will talk about cultural relics and will lead everyone into the world of mammals. The first issue introduces sperm whales from more than 8,000 natural specimens treasured in the Nature Museum of Fujian Museum.
On December 22, 1985, fishermen were fishing in Qinyu Bay, Fuding County, when they found a sperm whale breaking in and being surrounded by fishing nets. While it was roaring and struggling, the distant waves rolled and a swarm of sperm whales came fiercely, cruising around the sperm whale entangled in the net, and rubbing the entangled companion with its body net to show comfort, while rampage and attack the fishing boat. The fishing boat nearly capsized under the attack of the whale swarm.
After three or four hours of man-whale stalemate, the sea receded, and the 12 sperm whales were all stranded and lying on the beach. The largest of them is about 14.6m and the smallest is about 11m.
This is the first mass stranding of sperm whales on record in our country.
Due to the slow transmission of information at that time, when experts arrived at the scene, most of the whales had been dismembered by fishermen, so all their information could not be grasped, and only the Fujian Museum and the Xiamen Fisheries College each obtained a relatively complete male individual (body length of 13.5 m and 13 m respectively) to make a specimen. At present, the sperm whale skeleton specimen collected by the provincial bo is displayed in the exhibition hall of "Minhai Azure", while the leather specimen has not been expanded due to spatial factors.
Because the size of the sperm whale is too large, the production of the skin specimen can only be broken down into several segments, and after degreasing, tanning and other procedures, it is repaired and fixed to a model shaped like a sperm whale. The bone specimen should be dug into a pit and buried for about 1 year before degreasing bleaching fixed production.
Because of the sperm whale's penchant for giant squid, it is able to produce one of the most precious seafood products, "ambergris". Sperm whale swallows the giant squid in one bite, but can not digest the jaw pieces in the mouth of the squid, the end of the large intestine or the beginning of the rectum of the sperm whale due to irritation, causing lesions and produce a gray or slightly black secretion, these secretions gradually form a viscous dark substance in the small intestine In the lump, weighing 100-1000g, there were also 420kg. Its maximum diameter is 165cm, and this substance is called "ambergris". It is stored in the colon and rectum, generally gray or slightly black waxy, very unpleasant when just removed from the body, dried amber, with a sweet and sour taste. Ambergris itself does not have much fragrance, but when burned, it is full of aroma, resembling musk, and farther than musk, what has been smoked by it, the aroma is long-lasting, and the name of the sperm whale is derived from this.
Ambergris contains 25% ambergris, which is the raw material of precious spices and is the best substance to keep perfumes fragrant, which is used as a perfume fixative. At the same time, it is also a valuable traditional Chinese medicine, which has the effect of dissolving phlegm, scattering knots, li qi and invigorating blood.
Giant squid and ambergris
Sperm whale physeter macrocephalus
Chinese aliases: Giant Whale, True Beetle Whale, Whale
The English name is sperm whale
Synonym: physeter catodon
Taxonomic status: Belonging to the cetacea family (cetacea) sperm whale family (physeteridae) sperm whale genus (physeter).
Appearance characteristics: body length 18-25m, weight 20-25t. The body is short and stubby, slow and clumsy, and easy to hunt. The back of the body is dark black and the ventral surface is silvery gray or white. The head is particularly large, accounting for about 1/4-1/3 of the body length. The upper jaw and snout are square barrel-shaped, the lower jaw is thin and thin, narrow at the front and wide at the back, which is extremely disproportionate to the upper jaw. There are 20-28 pairs of conical narrow long teeth, each up to 10 cm in diameter and about 20 cm long. The water spray hole is on the left side of the front of the head, connected only to the left nostril, the right nostril is blocked, but it communicates with the lungs, it can be used as an air storage box, and the fog column that ejects from the breath is tilted at a 45° angle to the left front. There is no dorsal fin and the fins are shorter. The caudal fin is wide and 360–450 cm wide. The famous ambergris is produced in the intestines of sperm whales, and has always been an extremely valuable spice stabilizer and Chinese herbal medicine.
Life habits: like to move in the tropical, subtropical warm seas, sperm whales are usually a male and female family life, the number of members of each family varies, some are a few, some even dozens. Sperm whales are fierce in temperament, like to swallow octopus, squid, lock tubes and other animals, and eat a huge amount, eclipses a ton is not a problem.
Growth and reproduction: 12-16 months of gestation. Each litter only gives birth to 1 litter, occasionally 2 litters, the cubs are 4-5 m long, the lactation period is 1-2 years, sexual maturity at 7-8 years old, and the longest life span can reach 75 years.
Geographical distribution: Distributed in China in the Yellow Sea, The East China Sea, The Taiwan Sea and the South China Sea.
Conservation level: This species belongs to the national level II protected animal, belongs to Appendix I in cites, is assessed as "endangered" in the "Chinese Red List of Species", and is assessed as "vulnerable" in the iUCN Red List.
Specimen collection: A total of 2 pieces were collected in Qinyu, Fuding in December 1985, and were made into one skeletal specimen and one skin specimen respectively.
(Note: The author Wu Zhiyue is the president of the Fujian Museum, Wang Qiankun is a researcher of the Fujian Museum)
Page of the Newspaper of Cultural Life
—end—
Produced by Cultural Life Newspaper
Domestic unified issue number / cn35-0042
Editor-in-Charge of New Media / Wang Mingquan
Editor-in-Chief of New Media / Zou Lu