Drones Capture 3 Sperm Whale Head-Butts, Confirming 200-Year Weapon Theory

1 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 25

Three drone-filmed collisions off the Azores and Balearic Islands provide the first direct evidence that sperm whales strike one another head-on with the front of the skull.
Footage gathered from 2020 to 2022 documented whales approaching head-on and, in one case, pushing another whale after impact—behavior long inferred from the species’ oil-filled head chambers, reinforced neck and thick skin.
The finding supports a 2002 anatomical hypothesis that the spermaceti organ can function as a weapon, but the filmed animals were sub-adults rather than the large mature males central to the sexual-selection theory.
That mismatch leaves the purpose unresolved, with researchers pointing to possible dominance testing or rough play and stressing that three opportunistic cases are too few to judge how common or why the behavior occurs.
The study, published in Marine Mammal Science, also highlights overhead drones as a way to capture whale behavior that boat-based observation has struggled to document for two centuries.