Mythic white sperm whale captured on film near Jamaica
by Philip Hoare from Environment | The Guardian on (#5SGT5)
Type of whale immortalised in Moby-Dick has only been spotted handful of times this century
It is the most mythic animal in the ocean: a white sperm whale, filmed on Monday by Leo van Toly, watching from a Dutch merchant ship off Jamaica. Moving gracefully, outrageously pale against the blue waters of the Caribbean, for any fans of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville's book of 1851, this vision is a CGI animation come to life.
Sperm whales are generally grey, black or even brown in appearance. Hal Whitehead, an expert on the species, told the Guardian: I don't think I've ever seen a fully white sperm whale. I have seen ones with quite a lot of white on them, usually in patches on and near the belly."
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