I picked up a gray-white stone on the beach. I heard it can be sold for millions! ?

A netizen picked up a gray-white unidentified object weighing about 2 kilograms on the beach in Weihai, Shandong. It smelled faintly fishy from a distance, and there was a lot of grease on the surface, and it could be ignited with a lighter.

Ambergris picked up by netizens on the beach in Weihai, Shandong | Source see watermark

This gray-white object looks ordinary, but it is suspected to be one of the "four major animal natural spices" - the valuable ambergris! When appraising treasures online, it is considered to be a genuine product with a price of millions, which has attracted the envy of countless netizens. A person from a professional appraisal agency in Xiamen said that from the picture it looks very much like ambergris, but the price is not as exaggerated as 8,000 yuan per gram.

We can't tell the real thing from the fake here, but why is ambergris so precious? The story of this spice starts with the famous large whale, the sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus...

Big head and oily brain sperm whale

Sperm whales are probably one of the most widely distributed mammals in the world's oceans and can be found in open waters around the world.

At the same time, the sperm whale is also the largest toothed whale in existence . Its maximum length is 20.7 meters and its weight reaches an astonishing 80 tons. This data earns the sperm whale the honor of being the "largest predatory vertebrate in existence."

Copyright images in the gallery. Reprinting and using them may lead to copyright disputes.

The specific epithet "macrocephalus" of the sperm whale means "big head", which is used to refer to its huge square head that accounts for nearly 1/3 of its total length. But if you have seen the skull of a sperm whale with your own eyes, you will be surprised to find that its broad forehead has no bone support!

In fact, the forehead of sperm whales is filled with a large amount of spermaceti . These substances not only help sperm whales to echolocate, but some studies have shown that sperm whales may rely on adjusting the density of spermaceti to control their autonomous buoyancy, which is similar to the principle of shark liver.

At the same time, the thick spermaceti oil can also protect the sperm whale's brain from the damage of high pressure in deep water. With the presence of spermaceti oil, sperm whales can reach the deep sea area with a depth of 2550m and stay there for 1 hour.

Schematic diagram of the sperm whale's head structure, the dark gray part is where spermaceti is filled. ©pngkey.com

Sperm whales do not dive for fun, but in the dark deep sea, they are waiting for delicious prey. The diet of sperm whales mainly consists of sharks, bony fish and cephalopods, of which cephalopods account for about 60% to 70% of their food sources .

A reconstruction of a sperm whale preying on a giant squid, shown at the National Museum of Natural History (although humans have not yet directly observed the entire predation process, the existence of this predation relationship can be confirmed from the contents of the sperm whale's stomach and the suction cup marks on its skin.) ©Matt Shanley

Wait, weren’t we talking about ambergris today? Why did we get so off topic?

Don’t be impatient. In essence, ambergris is the intestinal secretion of sperm whales!

Ambergris = intestinal secretions of sperm whales?

Most of the cephalopods that sperm whales like to prey on are soft, but they also have "iron teeth and copper fangs" - horny beaks. With the horny beaks in their mouths, cephalopods can effectively tear the skin and flesh of their prey. Even after being swallowed by sperm whales, these horny beaks remain strong and will accumulate in the intestines of sperm whales. Over time, they will cause intestinal discomfort to sperm whales.

Close-up of the mouth of a medium-clawed squid. The sharp black part is its horny beak. ©Jean-Claude Stahl

In this case, the sperm whale's intestines secrete a sticky waxy substance that wraps the horny beak into lumps to reduce its irritation to the intestinal wall. These lumps are mostly irregular in shape and of varying sizes. The largest ambergris found so far weighs an astonishing 127 kg!

Sperm whales then excrete these substances. If they are lucky enough, they will be washed up on the beach after many drifts, waiting to be picked up by a lucky person...

The Mystery of Ambergris' Formation

Of course, we still know very little about the formation process of ambergris. We don’t know how long it takes for ambergris to be excreted by sperm whales, or even whether it is excreted from the mouth or from the anus in feces…

But what we can be sure of at present is that the probability of ambergris formation is very low , and this substance only exists in the intestines of about 3% to 4% of sperm whales.

Ambergris isn’t just found in the intestines of sperm whales. It’s also been found in the intestines of sperm whales ’ smaller relatives, Kogia breviceps.

Some literature records indicate that similar substances are also produced in the bodies of northern bottlenose whales Hyperoodon ampullatus and some baleen whales. Obviously, the specific cause still requires further exploration.

How to identify ambergris?

Although the formation process is a bit difficult to describe, it does not affect the prominent status of ambergris as a precious spice. Fresh ambergris is grayish white and often has a disgusting fishy smell . But if they are dried , the fishy smell will be replaced by a refreshing fragrance .

Dried ambergris is yellowish brown to dark brown and looks like amber, which is the origin of its English name – “Ambergris”.

Since ambergris is so precious, there have been countless scammers who have made huge profits by imitating ambergris since ancient times. This phenomenon is still common today.

But we can still identify the authenticity of ambergris through some tricks:

● The texture of real ambergris is dense and uniform, not too high, and often contains a small number of bone fragments.

● Dry real ambergris has a refreshing smell similar to a mixture of milk and wood. It can not only be dissolved in alcohol, but also can be ignited. After being thrown into the water, real ambergris will float in the water instead of sinking to the bottom.

Although these skills may seem simple, they were extremely important to consumers in ancient times when relevant identification methods were scarce.

With the development of modern chemical technology, chemists have gradually uncovered the true face of ambergris. Its chemical composition is mainly composed of ambrein (triterpene alcohol) and a series of cholesteryl alcohol substances . Ambergris itself is odorless, but after oxidation and decomposition, it will produce aminobromoether and aminobromohydrin, which is the source of the ambergris fragrance. Based on these principles, chemists can now artificially synthesize ambergris, and this technology is currently being gradually applied to industries such as cosmetics manufacturing.

The chemical formula of ambergris alcohol. After oxidation, it produces aminobromoether and aminobromohydrin, which are the source of the ambergris aroma. ©Wikipedia

Ambergris, can you eat it or smell it?

As early as 1500 BC , the ancient Egyptians living on the Mediterranean coast had discovered this exotic spice from the ocean. They used ambergris not only for aromatherapy and religious ceremonies, but also in witchcraft ceremonies. Since then, ambergris has become famous in the Middle East and the Mediterranean coast, and has spread to the world with the trade of Arab merchants.

Tincture made from natural ambergris (which has been used as a perfume since ancient Egypt). ©apothecarysgarden.com

The earliest record of ambergris in China began in the Tang Dynasty. There was a record in "Youyang Zazu": "The country of Bobalili (the name of an ancient country, located in the Somalia area of ​​Africa today), in the southwest sea...the land has only ivory and amber." The amber here is the transliteration of the Arabic name of ambergris "anbar" (this word is also the source of the name of ambergris in many languages ​​​​including English).

By the Song Dynasty, the popularity of ambergris increased further and many miraculous legends were attached to it. The "Dai Da of Lingwai" even vividly described the "formation" process of ambergris: "There are many dragons in the west sea of ​​Dashi. They sleep with stones as pillows. Their saliva floats on the water and accumulates to become strong." "Ambergris" got its name from this.

Coincidentally, Indians also believed that ambergris was condensed from the saliva of gods , and regarded it as a sacred object for use in religious occasions.

Ambergris also has a long history in Western countries. It is often ground into powder and added to food and beverages to give food a unique flavor.

King Charles II of England praised eggs cooked with ambergris and never tired of eating them. In the 18th century, European aristocrats loved to add ambergris to Turkish coffee and hot cocoa. In the mid-19th century, the rum formula also clearly stated that adding ambergris could further enhance the mellowness and sweetness of the wine.

In addition, some people believe that ambergris has magical effects such as protecting cardiovascular system and promoting sleep, and some people even take it as an aphrodisiac. As early as the 19th century, a 100-pound (about 90.72 kilograms) piece of ambergris could be sold for a high price of $20,000 !

Deadly aroma

Perhaps sperm whales never thought that the secretions in their intestines would be used as spices by humans. Unfortunately, they also did not realize that this would bring disaster to themselves...

As early as the 18th century, whalers had discovered that ambergris often appeared in the intestines of sperm whales. Although they did not understand how ambergris was formed in the intestines of sperm whales at that time, they knew that these unexpected discoveries meant that they could make a lot of money. This directly led to the slaughter of a large number of sperm whales. Despite this, whalers only found ambergris in very few sperm whales , and only a few of the few made a fortune from it.

But for commercial whaling, the value of sperm whales is definitely not just the ambergris in their bellies: their meat can be eaten, their fat can be used to extract whale oil, their skin can be used to make leather, their teeth can be used to carve handicrafts, and the spermaceti in their heads was an important industrial raw material at the time, which could be used to make cosmetics and high-grade lubricants. Even their bones and internal organs can be processed into feed and fertilizers. This directly led to the large-scale hunting of sperm whales by humans for nearly three centuries from the 18th to the 20th century.

Candles made from sperm whale spermaceti were once an important lighting tool for the American upper class in the 19th century. It was not until the emergence of the oil industry that spermaceti candles were gradually replaced by paraffin candles. ©Antiques Board

The early sperm whale hunting industry was full of dangers. The crews at the time relied on small sloops to approach these huge sea beasts, and then the harpooners would throw harpoons at them. During this process, the struggling sperm whales would also fight back hard, and it was common for whaling ships to be sunk by sperm whales and the crew to drown.

On November 20, 1820, a huge male sperm whale rammed the Nantucket whaling ship Essex. Only eight of the 21 crew members on board survived . This tragedy was by no means an isolated case in the early sperm whale hunting industry.

But with the advent of the Second Industrial Revolution, the emergence of large whaling ships pushed commercial whaling to a climax. Whalers no longer had to rely on simple sailboats and whale harpoons to fight these dangerous beasts at close range. Everything seemed to become easier.

In the 19th century, the number of sperm whales caught worldwide was only 184,000 to 236,000. But in the 20th century, the number of sperm whales caught worldwide soared to an astonishing 770,000. In 1946-1947, when the largest number of sperm whales was caught, 34,634 sperm whales were hunted by humans worldwide!

Before commercial whaling began in the 18th century, there were about 1.1 million sperm whales swimming in the world's oceans. By the second half of the 20th century, thanks to the massive commercial whaling, the global sperm whale population had declined by 73% . It was not until 1982 that commercial hunting of sperm whales was stopped worldwide, which meant that after hundreds of years of massacres, the surviving sperm whales finally had a chance to recuperate.

In 1922, whalers hunted sperm whales. In the 20th century, the emergence of large whaling ships gradually drove sperm whales to extinction. ©New Bedford Whaling Museum

In order to better protect sperm whales, some countries have even introduced laws to restrict the trade of ambergris : As early as 1973, the United States stipulated in the Endangered Species Act that private possession and trade of ambergris was illegal. Australia's Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, introduced in 1999, also explicitly prohibits the import and export of ambergris for commercial purposes; and the Wildlife Protection Act issued by the Indian government also makes the sale of ambergris illegal.

With the end of commercial whaling, sperm whale populations around the world are slowly recovering from the trough . As relevant research continues to deepen, we gradually find that sperm whales are far from being the stupid beasts we once thought. They are highly social animals like us and have rich emotions.

For example, when sperm whales see their fellows injured, they will even help and comfort them - they are much more complicated than we think. They should not be regarded as natural spice production machines in the ocean and slaughtered. Instead, we should ask for their forgiveness for what we have done and share this ocean that belongs to all creatures on the earth...

Planning and production

Source: Shanghai Natural History Museum (ID: snhm01)

Author: Luo Lan, Ocean Resources and Environment, Ocean University of China

Editor: Wang Mengru

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin