Sperm whale

The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), 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.^[4] Its lower jaw is small and contains its huge, conical teeth. These teeth fit into sockets in the upper jaw.

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,^[5] and stay underwater for two hours.

The males can reach up to 20.7m long, and weigh up to 80,000kg. The females measures in maximum size probably up to 15 meters (50 ft) and with a weight of 12,000 to 45,000 kg, she is smaller than males.^[6][7] 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.^[8][9]

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.^[10]