![]() ![]() It was once thought to be hardened sea foam or poo from seabirds - but mass whaling in the 1800s revealed it comes from the guts of the sperm whale.Īccording to the Natural History Museum (NHM), “There are conflicting opinions about how ambergris emerges from the whale. The whale produces the solid waxy substance in the form of vomit, which fishermen occasionally find floating in the sea. He says occasionally, a beak makes it way to the whale’s stomach and into its looping convoluted intestines where it becomes ambergris through a complex process, and may ultimately be excreted by the whale. A sperm whale eats several thousand squid beaks a day. However, Christopher Kemp, the author of Floating gold: A Natural and (unnatural) history of Ambergris, says this is not right. It is generally referred to as whale vomit. ![]() The term Ambergris is derived from the Old French word Amber and gris and it translates to grey amber. ![]()
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