Cachalot

Etymology

The word, borrowed from Portuguese cachalotte at the XVIIe century, indicating the same animal, does not have a clear origin. It seems to come from Portuguese cachola , term of oral language indicating the head. The term is also given like coming from the Gascon cachau , within the meaning of “large teeth” or with the Catalan quitxalot .

Description

The cachalot is characterized by enormous a almost parallelepipedic head, the presence of Dent S pointed and Narine S welded in a single vent. The adult measures from 10 to 18 m and weighs 20 to 50 ton S, the largest specimens being male.

The body is gray dark or black with some spots on the Ventre. It can comprise rectilinear marks and many scars, due to the engagements between the males or with Calmar S giants. The cachalot is able to plunge to 3000 meters of depth, to only drive out the latter.

The pectoral Nageoire S are small. The dorsal fin, made up of a line of peaks, is useful to plunge. The caudal, triangular and split fin, is very powerful and measures up to 4 Mr.

The head is in the shape of prow, with a face - the melon - with the almost rectangular profile in the male. Enormous, it represents one the length third and can weigh 16 tons. This size is explained by the presence of the Spermaceti, a pocket of approximately 5 tons of acétylpalmitate, a Lipide of the class of the Céride S, very snuffed in the manufacture of soap. The lips are white. The jaw lower comprises between 40-60 teeth which measure nearly 20 cm and weigh 1 kg. It is only the Cétacé whose vent, single, is oblique (forwards left).

With a mass being able to reach nine kilograms, the brain of the cachalot holds the animal world records. Its cerebral intelligence and its capacities are very badly known, because it is very difficult to study it alive. Current research lets think that it spends much time in a punctuated half-sleep of dreams, being let derive from long hours. It seems that they sleep with the vertical, the upside down.

Distribution

The cachalot saw in all the Océan S and almost all the Mer S, of which the the Mediterranean. He attends especially the areas sheltering the giant Calmar. Although he prefers equatorial water or tropical, the adult male goes up to the polar seas . In the Eighties, the three quarters of the cachalots were in the Southern hemisphere.

Hunting for the cachalot was prohibited in 1982 and continued in its traditional form with the the Azores until 1984.

Ethology

Food mode

The cachalot nourishes mainly Céphalopode S (Calmar S, Pieuvre S), but also of Poisson S and, sometimes, of Pinnipède S (Phoque S). Large predator, it can attack Requin S of three meters. Its favorite prey is the giant Calmar, with which it delivers titanic combat.

Although one found in the Estomac certain cachalots of the remainders of squids of several tens of meters, it generally feeds from great quantities of octopuses of one meter.

A champion of the apnea

After ten minute S during which it breathes surfaces some, the cachalot rocks, making emerge its caudal fin, then plunges during 30 to 110 minutes. It generally drives out between 300 m and 1000 m but can reach the abyssal depth of 2085 m, where it captures the giant octopuses and squids.

Social life

The females are gregarious and live in groups of 10 to 50 individuals, with their small and the young males, under the authority of an adult male. At the season of the loves, the males fight violently.

Reproduction

All the three to five year S, after a Gestation of about fifteen month, the female low puts a single young person of 4 m and more than one ton. The young people tètent until the age of more than one year. The young male leaves his/her mother only around six years and reaches sexual maturity only around 10 years. The male becomes adult around 30 years and can then constitute a group and to couple. Its longevity is of approximately 70 years.

A species in danger

The cachalot was exaggeratedly driven out for the Spermaceti (spermaceti), an oily liquid particularly appreciated which is concentrated in the head. Moreover, its Intestin S contains up to 500 kg of Ambergris, concretion very required in Parfumerie, where it is used as fixer.

Tracked as of the 18th century, the cachalot was decimated at the beginning of the 19th century. The famous novel Moby Dick reports the history of one of these Chasse S.

The species energy to disappear, its hunting was prohibited in 1982 by the Commission international whale-boat.

The possible impact of the industry based on the tourist observation of the cachalots was studied with Kaikoura (New Zealand). It seems indeed that this activity modifies the behavior of the animals, but in proportions so small that biological consequences are not undoubtedly to fear.

See too

References in the novels and comic strip

In the book Moby Dick ( the White Whale ) of Hermann Melville, it acts well of a cachalot (in: Sperm Whale ) that the Achab captain continues.
In the cartoon the Ball of the dead rat a cachalot fails Ostend and a mass grouillante of rats leaves its belly.

External references

External bonds

Card on the cachalot
Card and video of cachalot

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