Sperm Whale | The Marine Mammal Center

Mating occurs in spring and summer, and females carry their young for 14 to 16 months, giving birth every three to five years. Newborn calves are 13 feet long and weigh about a ton. These calves nurse for two years but may continue nursing with their mother intermittently for up to eight years.

Female and young male sperm whales are social with each other and are sometimes are seen in pods, or groups, of up to 50 whales. The females form matriarchal, or female-led, pods. The young males will often leave these groups to form bachelor herds until they are able to compete in mating at about 20 years old. Aside from the breeding season, adult males lead a solitary life.

Sperm whales are champion divers and are thought to dive to depths greater than 3,000 feet and can stay underwater for up to two hours. They impressively get to these depths in a matter of minutes.

Squid is a sperm whale’s favorite food and it’s suspected that they spend a lot of their dive time hunting for prey using echolocation. Sperm whales also produce a series of clicks called codas. Each whale has a distinctive coda and scientists think that sperm whales recognize each other by these clicks. There is also evidence that sperm whales produce intense bursts of sound to stun their prey.

The sperm whale is a species known for stranding in large groups. It is not known why they strand in this manner, but some theories include mass illness, parasitic infection, following a sick leader and echolocation malfunctions due to gently sloping beaches and underwater magnetic anomalies leading to disorientation.