In today’s Story from the Museum Floor, Visitor Team Coordinator Shaun takes a closer look at Sperm Whales alongside some of his other favourite objects from our galleries, while highlighting the shocking impact of the damage that we continue to do to our oceans.
For more information on our natural history collections and our Nature’s Library gallery please see our curator’s blogs.
Skeleton of a juvenile Sperm Whale hanging on display, suspended between the Nature’s Library and Living Worlds galleries.
The Sperm Whale
The sperm whale skeleton at Manchester Museum has been hanging above our Living Worlds gallery since 1898. This juvenile male sperm whale is 11 metres long and was washed up on the coast of Massachusetts, USA in 1896. The following year, Manchester Museum’s director bought the skeleton for $300. It was shipped to Manchester docks in three crates and it took local taxidermist Harry Brazenor three weeks to put the skeleton back together.
Taxidermist Harry Brazenor sits atop the Museum’s sperm whale skeleton during its installation, 1898.
Sperm whales can grow up to more than 18 metres in length. They are usually found in deep waters and are comparatively slow swimmers, travelling at less than 7 kph. When sperm whales have been known to dive to a depth of 500 metres hunting for for their favourite prey, giant squid, and can hold their breath for up to 90 minutes at a time!
The comparative sizes of an adult sperm whale, a human diver, and an African elephant.
Vulnerable giants
Sperm whales are the largest of all the toothed whales, and also have the largest brains (up to 9 kg in weight). However the huge head not only houses their brain, but also contains a cavity filled with a fine oil called spermaceti. Spermaceti plays an important role for a sperm whale for navigation and sonar, their ability to ‘see with sound‘. However, spermaceti is also the reason why they were so heavily hunted by whalers over the last century; this oil was for use in lamps, candles, creams, and more. Shockingly, during the whaling era, as many as one million sperm whales are estimated to have been killed; with only around 200,000 left today, although their numbers are slowly recovering.
Sponges, Shells, Coral and the environment
I think all the Visitor Team here at the Manchester Museum have their favourite objects from the galleries, these objects from the deep sea are some of mine and can be found in our Nature’s Library gallery.
Neptune’s Cup sponge on display in our Nature’s Library gallery.
On the Nature’s Library gallery we have many objects of wonder, one of which is Neptune’s Cup. Cliona patera is a sea sponge, and its common name, ‘Neptune’s Cup’ make’s reference to the Roman god of the sea. People must have been astonished to come across these magnificent sponges! Found in the sea of Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, they could grow to over 3 metres (9 ft) in height. They were so large that people have even used them as a tub to bath their babies. Unfortunately, this left them vulnerable to over-harvesting, so the extent that the species was thought to be extinct by the early 1900s. However, this is a good news story, with live specimens discovered in 2011 off the coast in Singapore. Hopefully these few can now be conserved allowing the species to bounce back again.
Sea Fan on display in our Nature’s Library gallery.
The Sea fan is another favourite of mine. They come in many shapes and colours. They attach themselves to hard surfaces and are found in warmer waters, usually around reefs as they form part of the coral family. The sea fan is actually a filter feeding animal that uses its feathery polyps to trap the plankton and bacteria it uses for food. The sea fan reproduces like many marine creatures, with fertilised eggs being released to make new colonies. As with the Neptune’s cup, sea-fans were, and sometimes still are, collected, dried, and sold as souvenirs. The best way to see these amazing colourful corals is in their own habitat, a calming view when you are swimming or scuba diving so long as you are careful not to disturb them! Coral reefs which include sea-fans are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet – rivalled only by the tropical rainforests.
A selection of mollusc shells on display in Nature’s Library.
The mollusc‘s hard shell is simply a protective outer casing for the soft bodied animals within. Finding a sea shell on the beach normally means that the animal has died or been eaten by a predator. 50,000 varieties of mollusc exist in our seas, with their shells primarily being made up of calcium like the bones in our skeleton. For millennia, people have used shells in many ways, including as adornment or containers, and sometimes even used as currency. Among the shells here are the Smelly Murex, Fighting Conch, Tiger Cowrie and Episcopal Mitre. However the amount of Carbon Dioxide currently being dissolved into the water is changing the natural pH of the seas and oceans making the water more acidic and harmful to the calcium shells of the molluscs and other creatures.
Are we killing our oceans?
It is shocking to realise that in the 21st century we are poisoning seas across the world with our waste, plastics, oil spills and deep water trawling to mention but a few. Polluting the oceans with chemical waste can have a devastating effects on hard and soft corals. Over two million species live on or amongst the world’s reefs. The loss of these reefs, will have a severe impact on whales, dolphins, spiny lobsters and the butterfly fish to mention a few. We all need to take action and reduce our carbon footprint, which is one of the main cause of Climate Change. Greenhouse gases cause our seas to warm, which is a direct threat to cold water fish. The more Carbon Dioxide we make, the higher the pH level in the seas and oceans, making the water more acidic and inhospitable to many species. We need to reduce the use of harmful fertilisers and pesticides that eventually find their way into our oceans, and clamp down on the illegal trade of marine life.
A graphic showing the ways in which human-made Climate Change is affecting our seas and oceans. (Source)
There is still time
It is up to each and everyone of us to change the route we are going down if we are going to save the planet from further harm. Our world is crying out for us to change and help it get back to the balance it once had. We have lost so much natural jungle and forest through deforestation that it is now causing instability with our weather, resulting in more unpredictable seasons and increasingly extreme weather episodes. Up to 80% of the Earth’s oxygen is produced by the tiny microorganisms of the seas and oceans that are most vulnerable to Climate Change.
We need to change now and give the Earth a chance to recover while it still can, otherwise it will be a very different world in 50 years.
Shaun Bennett
Stories from the Museum Floor 
