No one quite knows where or when it was discovered, according to Michigan-based molecular biologist Christopher Kemp who became so obsessed with it that it almost took over his life.
By the time it is washed ashore, it has been moulded and weathered, and is only recognisable by its distinctive scent. At some point in history, someone ground a piece of it down, dissolved it in alcohol, and discovered that it could act as a powerful fixative for perfume. Kemp was working in the University of Ontago on South Island when hundreds of people, followed by the national media, converged on a coastal area near Wellington.
After three days, it was confirmed that the potentially lucrative lump washed up with the tide was just a piece of worthless tallow. Back in the ninth century, ambergris was an important commodity for the Nicobar Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean, Kemp learned when he began to investigate. The Nicobarese wisely maintained control of this trade for much of their history, selling it to the Chinese and Burmese for medicinal use.
It was used to ward off the plague, it was an Egyptian aphrodisiac, and early 15th century Aztec emperor Moctezuma is said to have added it to his tobacco. It was once part of the standard formula for Indian ink. Kemp trawled through many newspaper files during his research. Back in , for instance, Tasmanian fisherman Louis Smith was reported to have crawled inside the decaying corpse of a sperm whale at sea, extracting a lb 82 kg boulder of the stuff which he towed back to the quay.
Pat Lillis, who has corresponded with Kemp, is still hoping for that one big find. Indeed, it might just become another skill for volunteer marine mammal observers trained by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group IWDG which is recruiting new members.
Rising infection rates in central and eastern Europe suggest a correlation between vaccine scepticism and populist politics. Sperm whales eat large quantities of cuttlefish and squid which forces them to vomit out the indigestible parts of their prey including beaks and hard shells.
It is the secretions surrounding the indigestible parts that gets vomited out, solidifies and floats on the surface of the ocean. Fossilised evidence of the substance dates back 1. However, it was not until large-scale whaling began in the s that the identity of its sole producer, the sperm whale, was uncovered. Naris Suwannasang, 60, said the blobs weighed lb - or kg - potentially making it one of the biggest-ever finds of whale vomit.
However, it is legal to salvage a lump of ambergris from a beach and sell it as it is regarded as excretion like urine or faeces. It's floating gold! Close Ken Willman with his find of sperm whale vomit. Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp. John Hall January 31 PM. Facebook Twitter Email.
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