The Best Reason Not to Eavesdrop on A Sperm Whale

Ocean-going creatures are amazing, top to bottom, from the greatest to the smallest. But one holds a terrible secret.

But first, gentle reader, imagine those depths! Waving, skyscraper tall forests of kelp. Acres of colourful coral. Stories of ancient mariners. Peg-legged pirates. The icy Titanic. (Even the one before DiCaprio!) Imagine the cold, deep blackness of Davey Jones locker. Or the blue-tinted waters of the sunny tropics, with sun-sparkled schools of fish. And imagine the legions of predators! Full of sharks. Stingray. Electric eels. Giant squid!

And then there are the whales. Like aquatic combinations of lions and elephants. Most are apex predators. As big as dinosaurs. When washed up on shore, beached on land, these deep sea marvels don't look so amazing... But they have had a profound impact on humanity since our early days.

One particular type of these leviathans has both captured the popular imagination and fuelled even more than people's imaginations. The sperm whale of Herman Melville's albino 'Moby Dick' fuelled the dreams of countless adventurers. In that great tale from 1851, a monster of a man chases another monster across oceans while sacrificing almost his entire crew, his sanity and finally his life.

Beyond this great fiction, such whales were harvested by the tens of thousands for the oil in their skulls to fuel streetlamps and other lights across the 'Old World' of Europe and the Far East as well as the west's 'New World.' This oil was used for over a century to light our way to great discoveries until fossil fuels like crude oil were able to be reliably refined.

But more than as well-known cultural touchstones and providing for our first widespread bio-tech, the sperm whale hides an awesome, secret power.

(Most people do not know about this and few - if any - will ever experience it for themselves. Thankfully.)

You've heard of ultrasound as a tool in medical imaging. Or ultrasonic waves to do everything from cleaning clothes to blasting plaque to busting kidney stones. But what about infrasound? Opposite to ultrasonic vibrations, infrasonic sounds are long, low, relatively slow waves. They also happen to be the way sperm wales, with their uniquely shaped skulls and spermaceti organ, communicate with each other across vast ocean distances.

Water is much denser than air, so it allows sound waves to remain coherent across great distances. A loud click from a sperm whale can be as loud as a rocket blast. Those vibrations, the infrasound, literally ‘below sound,’ can do some remarkably interesting things. If encountered by nearby humans, however, they are not interesting. They are terrible.

“Ultrasonic waves? Pffftt!”

Infrasonic sounds are deep! We cannot hear the sounds since our anatomy and physiology is not designed to receive them. But the vibrations are loud. Really loud. Sound energy is measured in decibels, notated as “dB.” According to scientists of incredibleoceans.org, “Normal human conversation clocks in at around 65 dB while noisy roadworks can be as high as 95 dB (the level at which you may start to experience damage to your hearing). If you’ve ever been to a loud rock concert or club night, you will have been exposed to around 115 dB and probably had ringing in your ears (tinnitus) the next day. At 125 dB pain begins and the scale keeps going up to 194 dB, the loudest sound possible in air."

Sperm whales? Clicks have been recorded – from a distance – at 256 dB!!

In humans, these spectacularly low frequency infrasonic vibrations - specific to sperm whales in their lowest frequencies - have an interesting side effect, beyond carrying the latest whale news to pods of distant cousins half an ocean away. In land lubbers like us who decide to dive into the dark deep waters, the chatter of sperm whales can induce bowel spasms, promote vomiting, cause organ damage, knock us unconscious and - mercifully perhaps, at that point - even cause death. Imagine that. Convulsing in an alien environment while losing bowel control and vomiting just before your heart explodes…

What a way to go.

Fascinating fun fact? Obscure wisdom? You decide.

But I do know the moral of this deep, dark story:

Do *not* eavesdrop on sperm whales.

Thanks for listening…

https://www.stem.org.uk/system/files/elibrary-resources/2016/11/Catalyst27_1_whales_and_waves.pdf

__

My name is Rodney Ashfield. Nice to meet you here. As a writer, I deeply appreciate your time and interest. Any constructive criticisms or tips are much appreciated.

Thanks again!