[imagesource:wikimediacommons]

One would not be remiss if they didn’t immediately think ‘Ka-Ching!’ when imagining a hunk of smelly whale vomit.

Perfumers around the world would beg to differ, though, seeking out the gut stuff like it’s gold. Ambergris, as it is formerly known, is highly sought after – once even being worth more than a brick of gold, actually – in the perfume industry for its distinct odour and scarcity. It’s often called “floating gold” or the “treasure of the sea”.

Even though the waxy substance originates from the digestive system of protected sperm whales, it smells amazing and is incredibly expensive, often fetching amounts that reach into the hundreds.

Ambergris, which means grey amber in French, is described as having a woody, sweet-earthy, and musky-marine scent profile, not totally dissimilar to sandalwood and tobacco.

Anyway, whale vomit is incredibly valuable, and if you find it, you might just become a millionaire.

In 2021, a group of fishermen in the Gulf of Aden scored a chunk of whale vomit worth around $1,5 million. They sold the smelly stuff to a buyer in the United Arab Emirates, and bought houses, cars, and boats from their profits, the BBC reported at the time.

Then, in May this year, the valuable treasure was found in a sperm whale that had washed up dead on a beach on the Canary Island of La Palma.

Image: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Antonio Fernández, a scientist and professor from the University of Las Palmas, was inspecting the dead sperm whale at Nogales beach when he discovered an almost 10-kilogram lump of whale vomit worth around $544 000 (over R10 million).

Image: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Per Insider, Fernández said that he was investigating the cause of death for this particular sperm whale while checking its colon when suddenly, he struck gold:

“What I took out was a stone about 50 to 60 cm in diameter weighing 9.5 kg,” he said, according to The Guardian. “The waves were washing over the whale. Everyone was watching when I returned to the beach, but they didn’t know that what I had in my hands was ambergris.”

Sadly, the whale died of sepsis caused by the chunk of ambergris, Fernández noted:

The origin of ambergris, produced by about one in 100 sperm whales, was only solved when large-scale whaling began in the early 19th century. Whales eat large quantities of squid and cuttlefish, most of which cannot be digested and is vomited out. But some remains, and over the years binds together in the whale’s intestines to form ambergris.

Image: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

This is sometimes excreted, which is why ambergris is most commonly found floating in the sea. But sometimes, as in the case of the whale in La Palma, it grows too large, rupturing the intestine and killing the whale.

Under these circumstances, Fernández made the decision to sell the vomit for a good cause and not for his own personal gain:

The professor also told Canarias7 on June 20 that he planned to give the valuable lump to local authorities in La Palma so that it could be sold to help those affected by a devastating volcano eruption in 2021.

The natural disaster caused more than £685 million (over R16,4 billion) in damage and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses.

The US, Australia and India have banned the trade in ambergris as part of the ban on hunting and exploiting whales, but as Fernández said, “The law is different in every country. In our case, I hope the money will go to the island of La Palma, where the whale ran aground and died.

[source:insider]