Fig. 7. Frontal view of a stranded bull sperm whale showing the location of scars
on the anterior aspect of the spermaceti organ. The bull is lying on its left
side. The relative size and shape of the two major compartments of the organ
can be distinguished: (A) junk and (B) spermaceti. Note the
`battering-ram'-like appearance of the junk compartment and that the scars are
largely restricted to the junk. The scars probably result from tooth-raking
during male—male aggression as has been suggested by Best
(1979) and Kato
(1984). The scars are usually
concentrated on the anterior end of the junk, suggesting that tooth-raking
occurs during head-butting. If the scars were the result of jaw-to-jaw
wrestling matches, which have been observed to occur between male sperm whales
(Berzin, 1972), we would have
expected them to be concentrated at the angle of the mouth. Reprinted with
permission from Møhl
(2001).
