Sperm whale

The sperm whale (Physeter catodon), also known as the cachalot, is the largest toothed whale. It has the biggest head of any animal. The head can be about 20 feet (6.1 m) long, and is about one-third of the whale's body. It also has biggest brain of any animal.^[1] Its lower jaw is small and contains its huge, conical teeth. These teeth fit into sockets in the upper jaw.

Sperm whale
A mother and baby Sperm whale
Size comparison against an average human
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Cetacea
Suborder:	Odontoceti
Family:	Physeteridae
Genus:	Physeter
Binomial name
Physeter catodon Linnaeus, 1758

Diet

Sperm whales are carnivores (meat-eaters). They mostly hunt medium-sized squid. They also eat many kinds of fish such as skate. Sometimes they hunt giant squid that live on the ocean bottom at great depths. Most of the animals sperm whales eat live in the deep sea, and sperm whales dive very deep to hunt. They regularly dive between 300 and 800 meters (980 and 2,620 feet) deep,^[2] and stay underwater for two hours.

Size

Sperm whales can reach up to 20.7m long, and weigh up to 80,000kg.^[3][4] In the past, there have been claims about whales that were as long as 24 meters, but these claims are not proven, and there is disagreement about whether they are true.^[5][6]

Echolocation

A drawing of the organs inside a sperm whale's head. All the organs above the jaw are used for echolocation.

Like other toothed whales, the sperm whale uses echolocation, a way of sensing in which the whale makes a high-piched clicking sound and listens to the echoes that it makes as it bounces off of objects (like prey). Sperm whales use this to hunt, but also to communicate, using patterns of clicks called click codas. Sperm whales have special organs that they use for echolocation. These are called the spermaceti organ and the junk. The spermaceti organ is like a large barrel full of spermaceti, an oily liquid that sperm whales use for echolocation. The junk is made of cartilage and spermaceti, and is used to focus the sounds made for echolocation.^[7]