where did the sperm whale get its name
Sperm whale The name sperm whale is a truncation of spermaceti whale. Spermaceti, originally mistakenly identified as the whales' semen, is the semi-liquid, waxy substance found within the whale's head (see below).[8] The sperm whale is also known as the "cachalot", which is thought to derive from the archaic French for "tooth" or "big teeth", as preserved for example in cachau in the Gascon dialect (a word of either Romance[9] or Basque[10] origin). The etymological dictionary of Corominas says the origin is uncertain, but it suggests that it comes from the Vulgar Latin cappula, plural of cappulum, "sword hilt".[11] The word cachalot came to English via French from Spanish or Portuguese cachalote, perhaps from Galician/Portuguese cachola, "big head".[12] The term is retained in the Russian word for the animal, кашалот (kashalot), as well as in many other languages.
Blue whale Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-grey dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath.[7] There are at least three distinct subspecies: B. m. musculus of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia of the Southern Ocean and B. m. brevicauda (also known as the pygmy blue whale) found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. B. m. indica, found in the Indian Ocean, may be another subspecies. As with other baleen whales, its diet consists almost exclusively of small crustaceans known as krill.[8]