Mocha Dick
Mocha Dick was a notorious male sperm whale that lived in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century. He is associated with the waters off the island of Mocha off western South America. Unlike most sperm whales, Mocha Dick was white in color, possibly due to albinism. The whale was the inspiration for the ficitional whale Moby Dick in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
Mocha Dick was famous for having survived many by some accounts at least 100) skirmishes with whalers before he was eventually killed. He was overly large and powerful, capable of wrecking small crafts with his flukes. According to J.N. Reynolds, who gathered first-hand observations of Mocha Dick, the whale also had a peculiar method of spouting:
- Instead of projecting his spout obliquely forward, and puffing with a short, convulsive effort, accompanied by a snorting noise, as usual with his species, he flung the water from his nose in a lofty, perpendicular, expanded volume, at regular and somewhat distant intervals; its expulsion producing a continuous roar, like that of vapor struggling from the safety-valve of a powerful steam engine.[1]
The whale also had an enormous number of barnacles on him for a member of his species, giving him a rugged appearance.
According to Reynolds, Mocha Dick was most likely first encountered and attacked sometime prior to the year 1810 off Mocha Island. His survival of the first encounters, coupled with his unusual appearance, quickly made him famous among Nantucket whalers. Many captains, after rounding Cape Horn, attempted to hunt him. He was docile and friendly if not attacked, sometimes swimming alongside approaching whale boats. When attacked, however, he was capable of great ferocity and destruction, and was widely feared among harpooners.
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Categories: Famous animals | Moby-Dick