The Sulphur-Bottom Whale

The sulphur-bottom whale is the largest mammal on (or under) the earth’s surface; many speculate that it might be the largest animal ever to have inhabited our terraqueous globe. These immense creatures can typically grow to between eighty and a hundred feet long, with the largest specimens caught suggesting that the whales might exceed one hundred and ten feet in length! The weight of the sulphur-bottom whale is commensurate with its size: they can weigh between one hundred and one hundred and fifty tons. For comparison, the largest elephant ever recorded weighed a mere twelve tons. If the sulphur-bottom whale rolled over in its sleep, it would squash him like a bug. The sulphur-bottom can also consume up to four tons of food per day in feeding season. As a baleen whale, it strains krill from the water with the baleen plates in its mouth. In one feeding session, it can consume up to forty million krill.

So why have most of us never heard of the fantastic “sulphur-bottom” whale? Actually, we have. The sulphur-bottom whale is just another name for the blue whale. But why sulphur-bottom? Well, as Ishmael (the narrator of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick) tells us in Chapter 32: Cetology, his “brimstone belly” is “doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings.” In other words, the sooty sulphur of hell’s attic (the deep ocean floor) has rubbed off onto his underbelly.

Well, not quite. The yellow underbelly of the blue/sulphur-bottom whale is actually caused by an algae “bloom” of yellow diatoms. In the tropical waters, this algae adheres to the whale’s stomach as it trawls the water looking for a snack. This yellow coloring earned the whale its name of “sulphur-bottom.” When the whale moved to colder waters, however, the algae died off, unable to thrive in the frigid northern climes. At this point, the stomach of the whale returned to its peachy clean white color. Hence, the normal “blue” whale. For many years, this change baffled sailors, cetologists, and scientists around the world. The changing bellies led the sulphur-bottom whale to be classified as distinct from the blue whale; each was given its own scientific and common name.

If this whale’s tale piqued your interest, then you might enjoy Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Follow the link here to learn more about it; Melville himself was an ardent whale conservationist. He fought against the commercial techniques that would later reduce whale populations by up to 99%. Or, check out National Geographic’s Blue Whale Interactive.