Elusive White Sperm Whale Spotted in the Waters Near Jamaica

A white sperm whale, recorded on Monday by Leo van Toly from a Dutch merchant ship off the coast of Jamaica, is the most mythological animal in the ocean.

For aficionados of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, this vision is a CGI cartoon come to life, moving smoothly and shockingly pale against the blue waters of the Caribbean.

Sperm whales have a grey, black, or even brown coloration. "I don't think I've ever seen a white sperm whale," Hal Whitehead, a sperm whale specialist, told the Guardian. I've seen several with a lot of white on them, mainly in spots around the belly."

Captain Ahab's leg was bitten off by Melville's white whale, which led the enraged sailor halfway around the world searching for vengeance. The whale in the novel transforms into a shapeshifter, able to exist in several places at once. Ahab imbues his cetacean adversary with a feeling of evil. Yet, Melville's story demonstrates that there is only one animal on Earth capable of wicked behavior, and that is his species.

The author goes even farther, describing the whale's whiteness as scary in and of itself, comparing it to that of a giant white shark or a polar bear. Ishmael, the narrator, notes, "It was the whiteness of the whale that shocked me."

Many critics feel Melville criticized the rampant maltreatment of enslaved people in North American states by invoking the whale's whiteness. Even as he was writing his work, the author was aware of the possibility for bloodshed in his nation due to the abolitionist movement.

Sperm Whales

Sperm whales have the longest teeth of any mammal, measuring up to 18 meters in length. They also have the largest brain, employ diverse languages to communicate clicks from one group to the next, and have a matrilineal intergenerational society.

Their sense of social expressiveness and togetherness defines them; one can experience this when swimming with them, as their sonorous clicks allow them to communicate across long distances. This unique glimpse of an almost heraldic beast highlights the strange fragility of whales, the world's biggest animals whose destiny humans control.