Scientific Tidbits: Sperm Whales
Daily Diary, September 8, 2022, Day 767:
Scientific Tidbits: Sperm Whales
The day I read the article “A Pod’s Bonds” in the September/October 2022 Discovery Magazine, I was working on a chapter in my work in progress, Against the Tides of Acerba, where I was trying to come up with some sort of conspiracy for my main protagonist, the young woman Mei Lin, to investigate. I had gotten as far as setting the conspiracy in Vida, the neighboring country to the south of Caelestis, which is the primary setting of my other three novels. Looking at the map of these two countries, I discovered a feature I hadn’t noticed before.
I didn’t make the map, (one of the other creators of the Paradisi Chronicles had done this) and before now I hadn’t really noticed that there was a tiny isthmus that connected a large island (which I had named Nihon) and the country of Vida.
I idly wondered what would happen to the marine ecology of the strait between these two land masses if someone tried build a channel like the Panama Canal through that isthmus.
And this is where the article I had read earlier in the day played an important role. If you have read my series, you will know that the world we have created, New Eden, has a number of mammals who have the ability to communicate with humans. In my first book, Between Mountain and Sea, one of my favorite creations were sea-lion like animals, called Hen Ddynions, who had this capability. As I read the Discovery article, I’d had the thought that it would be great if I could find a reason to create animals like these sperm whales (with telepathic abilities) for New Eden in this next book I am writing in the series.
Suddenly, the two ideas came together. Perhaps I could have these whale-type mammals living in this strait, and they could help in uncovering this conspiracy.
Off I went, down a rabbit hole, doing some quick research on sperm whales.
First, here is a quote from the Discovery article, and I think you will see why I was so intrigued. The article described a “pod” of sperm whales who appeared to have adopted a dolphin with a disfigured spine.
The pod was made up of four whales: a huge matriarch more than 30 feet long, a slightly smaller individual about three-quarters her size, and two calves. Wonderful as all this was on its own, there was a cherry on our cetacean cake — with the pod was an adult bottlenose dolphin.
The two species are tolerant of one another, but their different lifestyles and prey preferences mean that they seldom associate. What might have decided the issue was that the dolphin had a pronounced curvature of the spine, twisting its body just behind the dorsal fin. It didn’t look like an injury (there was no scarring), but rather something the dolphin had carried since birth. Nonetheless, it had survived, against the odds, to reach adulthood. It’s possible that the condition hampered its ability to swim at the relentless pace at which bottlenoses typically travel. If so, it would be isolated from the intensely social life of its own kind, and perhaps, as a surrogate, it had joined the whale society.
Then, even more astonishingly, the whales began some strange kind of game. The matriarch would open her oarlike lower jaw, and one of the smaller whales would swim into her mouth, its head protruding from one side and its tail sticking out the other. The matriarch would then seem to very gently nibble the smaller whale for a second or two. The nibbled whale would swim clear and circle around to join the back of the queue, and another would maneuver into place for a little of the same treatment.—“A Pod’s Bonds” in the September/October 2022 Discovery Magazine
Next, I looked up what a Cetacean was, to get a general idea of this Earth species, and then I looked up sperm whales, specifically, finding this description:
Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are the largest toothed whales, with enormous square-shaped heads and the biggest brains of any animal on Earth. These deep-divers are known for hunting down giant squid and other prey as deep as 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) below the ocean surface.
Sperm whales are the only living species in the genus Physeter and are more closely related to dolphins than to baleen whales, such as blue whales. The name sperm whale comes from early whalers who mistook the waxy oil found in the spermaceti organ in a sperm whale's head for semen, according to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
This led me to wonder what kind of species might actually be a threat to such a large and intelligent creature (besides humans). See the quote from this article below that suggested could be a shark-like creature (which will no doubt be something I will need to research later.)
Female sperm whales will give birth approximately once every 5 years beginning when they are around 9 years old. Pregnancy lasts for 14-16 months. Calves are approximately 12-14 feet in length when born. They will nurse on their mother’s milk for several years, although they will begin to eat some solid food before they are a year old. Females form very close bonds with their young and are very protective of them. Male sperm whales reach sexual maturity when they are between 10–20 years old, but they may not breed for several more years, until they have reached a larger size. Males play no role in raising their young.
A typical family unit is comprised of about a dozen females and their young. Once a male sperm whale is between 4 and 21 years old, it will leave the family unit. Young male sperm whales will form “bachelor pods”, comprised of other young males. Once a male has become fully grown, it may travel alone. Adult males will only return to the female-led family groups once they are ready to breed.
Predators of the sperm whale, aside from humans, are sharks and the killer whale (Orchinus orca), which will only prey upon females and young individuals. When confronted by a pod of killer whales, a sperm whale family unit may adopt a defensive posture, placing the calves inside a circle surrounded by the adult females.
Finally, I was curious about the kinds of society that whales (and dolphins) have developed, specifically in their interaction with other species. One article said:
Whales and dolphins exhibit a wide range of fascinating behaviours, from hunting, spy-hoping and tail slapping, to surfing waves and using tools. There are also well substantiated reports of whales and dolphins grieving for their dead, even rescuing humans.
Whale and dolphin species tend to exhibit a high degree of social behaviour, including cooperation, which helps to ensure that groups thrive. Examples of cooperation include bubble-net feeding in humpback whales and the co-operative behaviour between bottlenose dolphins and fishermen reported in various parts of the world.
Interestingly, the website where I found this quote is a conservation site that believes that these creatures are not just sentient, but sapient (how perfect is that for a model for a New Eden animal), but what it argues is echoed in a number of scientific studies I found, including an academic paper that looks at what the researchers call the development of “vocal clans,” among sperm whales. This paper argues that “Culture may thus be a more important determinant of sperm whale population structure than genes or geography, a finding that has major implications for our understanding of the species’ behavioural and population biology.”
So, now I need to come up with a name and description for these New Eden aquatic animals (and perhaps for other species that they cooperate with--like dolphins--as well as their main predators and prey.)
Then I get to let them loose in my unfolding plot.