Science Says Sperm Whales Could Really Wreck Ships
10th April 2016
“The ship? Great God, where is the ship?,” wondered the fictional sailors crewing Captain Ahab’s mighty Pequod, right after the legendary whale Moby Dick rammed the vessel, tearing it asunder. The sudden, apocalyptic climax of Herman Melville’s iconic novel is rich with meaning, and nestled inside it is a deep, enduring scientific question: Could a sperm whale like Moby Dick actually ram a ship apart, and survive?
The answer, according to research from Olga Panagiotopoulou at the University of Queensland, is a resounding “probably.”
Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.