Past Featured Whales
calf! This unmistakable animal was seen on several days near Cape Cod during late July and early August. Based on its size and behavior, we think the animal was at least six months old, and it appeared to still be nursing from the mother. While there is hardly any coloration at all on this whale, there is a light grey swath on the animal's back. (
Pilot whale vocalizations
This is one of three pilot whales that we know of which are completely white, or nearly so. In 1998, a pilot whale calf was photographed on Jeffreys Ledge that appeared to be all white. This whale has been seen again on the Ledge in almost every subsequent year. Previously, in the early 1980's, a scientific note was published which described a white pilot whale adult that was seen on offshore government surveys.
White whales have been famous ever since Herman Melville published Moby Dick in the 1850's. Moby Dick was supposed to be an albino sperm whale. In reality, Moby Dick was based on a real whale named Mocha Dick who was famous in the 1820's and 1830's in the South Pacific. This whale was not white but supposedly "coffee" colored, but was otherwise similar to the animal that Melville described. True albino sperm whales have now been seen and even filmed several times; the PBS-TV series "Nature" aired dramatic underwater footage of a young albino sperm whale calf several years ago. In addition, one in every 100 southern right whales is born light colored, although they darken with age. We also know a totally white humpback whale that has been seen since the late 1980's off the coast of Australia.
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