Moby Dick Lookalike Spotted in Jamaica
If Captain Ahab were alive today, he'd be triggered to find out that a white sperm whale, similar to the one that bit off his leg, was found swimming the waters off Jamaica. Now, I'm not much of a literature buff, but what what I did take away from my high school years was that vengeance played a huge role in searching for the whale Ahab dubbed Moby Dick.
Basically, it's the whale that put New Bedford on the map, and conjures up images of the city's history every time someone reads Herman Melville's masterpiece.
According to marine biologists, this rare sighting was surreal since the sperm whale was completely white, as opposed to the typical gray or black coloring. However, compared to the mythical Moby Dick that terrorized fishermen and innocent ships sailing the Atlantic, the Jamaican sperm whale was as content as can be.
Here's the video footage that captured this magnificent creature in its natural habitat:
Scientists are identifying this whale as an albino. Again, a very rare find considering the population of sperm whales is down to only 300,000 remaining in the world, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Most people think of sperm whales as swimming in colder waters, but that's really just true of the males of the species. Females and juveniles prefer warmer waters such as those off Jamaica, and the males will return to warmer waters to mate.
A little fun fact for you if you ever plan on scuba diving near these majestic beasts: don't get too close as their clicking noises are loud enough to damage the human ear. Also, their brain is about six times larger than ours, making them much more intelligent than the average bear – or in this case, human being.
The more you know.