The Americas Footage of Sperm Whales Will Make Your Jaw Drop
The Americas goes deep to follow sperm whales on a hunt.
The Americas takes us on an expansive journey across our planet’s greatest supercontinent, containing the widest variety of life on Earth. Over the course of 10 episodes, the documentary series tells previously untold stories of the natural world happening all around us, from the southern tip of Chile to the frozen north of Canada and Alaska.
In a recent episode, viewers visited the Caribbean, a tropical paradise where land meets water. It’s a world where crabs make death-defying overland migrations, and tropical storms constantly reshape the landscape.
Growing up a sperm whale in the Caribbean
The Caribbean stretches for more than a million square miles, bordered by volcanic islands in the east, Cuba and the Bahamas in the north, Central America to the west and South America to the south. In those tropical waters, massive balls of baitfish feed on microscopic plankton close to the surface, attracting sleek hunters like sailfish which work together to splinter schools of fish and devour them.
In deeper waters, you can find sperm whales hunting giant squid along the seafloor. While adult males generally live and hunt on their own, females and their offspring form groups of approximately 12 individuals which stay together for decades. Females usually stay with their groups throughout their entire lives, while males head off on their own between the ages of 4 and 21. From there, they join “bachelor schools” of other sperm whales, each approximately the same age and size.
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In the far east of the Caribbean, sperm whales gather around Dominica, a volcanic island covered in rainforest and bordered by waters a mile deep. It’s a perfect place for sperm whales to nap, hang out together, and grow up. They sleep vertically, their noses pointed toward the sky. Their heads are more buoyant than the rest of their bodies, keeping them upright like a corked message in a bottle.
At 6 months old, babies weigh as much as 2 tons and are still growing. They can drink the equivalent of a bathtub of water every day. The nipples of female sperm whales are inverted when the calf isn’t feeding. When it’s time to eat, the mother streams milk into the water toward the calf. Fortunately, sperm whale milk contains more than 30% fat so that it doesn’t dissolve in water.
Sperm whale mothers give birth once every 4 to 20 years and spend more than a decade taking care of their calves. Producing that much milk means a mother sperm whale needs to feed, and to do that, she needs to hunt.
How sperm whales live and hunt in the oceans of the Americas
The deep sea activities of sperm whales, including their hunting behaviors, have been something of a mystery for centuries. The team behind The Americas spent two years developing a camera system which attached to a sperm whale with suction, following them on their daily activities, allowing us to see a day in the life of a sperm whale for the first time.
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Sperm whales have been the major target of the whaling industry, sought for the spermaceti oil found in their heads and the ambergris in their digestive tracts, which is still a highly desired ingredient for perfumes. They can be more than 50 feet long and swim at speeds of up to 28 miles per hour.
When it’s time to hunt, sperm whales descend together, communicating with a series of clicks until they reach the seafloor, then they separate to hunt alone.
We watch as a female sperm whale dives to 2,500 feet in search of squid. She uses sound to find them in the dark. Each click, louder than a gunshot, paints a picture of the environment in sound waves. Those vocalizations are as loud as 236 decibels (more than twice as loud as a chainsaw held 3 inches from your ear) the loudest animal-created sound on the planet.
When she finds her prey she attacks, eating as much as 100 pounds of squid per dive and as much as 2,000 pounds of food per day. When the hunt is over, the calf calls and slaps his tail, sounding a beacon to help mother and child find their way back to one another.
Where to watch The Americas
New episodes of The Americas air weekly Sundays at 8:00 p.m. ET on NBC, and stream on Peacock the following day!
