The scientific name for the sperm whale means blower and long head. It is also known as the great sperm whale and cachalot. The sperm whale is a toothed whale or Odontoceti . The sperm whales appear to have a highly evolved social system in comparison to the baleen whales. They have been found to live together in groups of about 15-20 mature females and their calves. They also have the most distinctive of blows out of all the cetaceans, which is positioned on the left hand side of their head.

The sperm whale is the largest of the toothed whales and it is dark brown to dark grey in colour but some white and black sperm whales have been recorded. The huge head of the sperm whale can be 25-30% of the length of it body, it has short stubby looking flippers and has powerful broad tail flukes, which have scalloping on the edges of them. The dorsal fin is small and triangular and it has a blow hole on the left hand side of its head, this is believed to do with the whale surfacing after long dives.

The male sperm whales are 16m or 52ft in length, with the female measuring 13m or 42ft. The male weighs between 40 to 50 tons, with females weighing around 20 tons.

Sperm Whales feed on squid octopi and fish and the can often take their prey at great depths. They also consume fish, including sharks, rays, cod, redfish, squid and laternfish are also taken. The lower jaw of the whale contains approximately 50 rounded teeth in two parallel rows, each tooth weighing over a kilogram.

The females reach sexual maturity between the ages of 8-12 years old with the male of the species not reaching maturity until they are at least 10 years old. The gestation period for a sperm whale calf is much longer than that of the baleen whales at 16-17 months. With the female producing a calf once every five years.

Oil was produced from their thick blubber and the meat, this was used for high grade machine oil and also for lighting purposes in olden times. In the case (the head) contained a liquid called spermaceti so named because it resembled male sperm, this oil in the case was the finest oil and again in olden times was used for lighting. The teeth of the lower jaw of the speak whale (none on the upper jaw) is mainly ivory and was its popular use by the whalers was for making scrimshaw. Modern whalers used to make penguins and other shapes from these teeth. Ambergris which was sometimes found in the intestines and was formed by a mucus which surrounded the squids beak which was indigestible to them, produced a lining in their stomachs this was used for fixing perfumes but is now done synthetically today. The ambergris was extremely valuable and the largest piece ever discovered happened on Christian Salvesens factory ship Southern Harvester in 1955. The meat of the sperm whale is inedible and black in colour.