𝘼𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙨

Ambergris is a rare, natural byproduct of the sperm whale's squid-based diet 

ambra grisea, Old French: ambre gris), ambergrease, or grey amber

Ambergris

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 ambergris

Ambergris is often described as one of the world's strangest natural occurrences.

It is produced by sperm whales and has been used for centuries, but for many years its origin remained a mystery. 

Ambergris has been a unique phenomenon for millennia. Fossilised evidence of the substance dates back 1.75 million years, and it is likely that humans have been using it for more than 1,000 years. 

Ambergris important

It has been called the treasure of the sea and floating gold.

Where it comes from remained a mystery for years, during which several theories were proposed, including that it was hardened sea foam or the droppings of large birds.

Ambergris very important

However, it was not until large-scale whaling began in the 1800s that the identity of its sole producer, the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), was uncovered.

Ambergris YouTube

Sperm whales eat large quantities of cephalopods such as squid and cuttlefish. In most cases the indigestible elements of their prey, such as the beaks and pens, are vomited out before digestion.

Ambergris YouTube 2

Though the ambergris has been used by humans for a long time, its unusual characteristics left its origin a mystery

But in rare circumstances these parts move into the whale's intestines and bind together. They slowly become a solid mass of ambergris, growing inside the whale over many years.

It is thought that ambergris protects the whale's internal organs from the sharp squid beaks.

Sudden emergence

There are conflicting opinions as to how ambergris emerges from the whale. Some believe that the whale regurgitates the mass, earning it its well-known nickname 'whale vomit'.

Sperm whales were hunted for their valuable whale oil, which was widely used to fuel lamps and make soap

He says, 'Based upon recent discussion with colleagues around the world, I lean towards the theory that ambergris forms in the intestines and passes along with faecal matter, forming an obstruction in the rectum.'

Some think the whale will pass the mass, whereas others believe the obstruction grows so large it eventually fatally ruptures the whale's rectum.

Sperm whales live all over the world, meaning deposits of ambergris could be found floating on any ocean or washed up on most shorelines.

But it is uncommon, found in less than 5% of whale carcasses.

It is thought that pygmy (Kogia breviceps) and dwarf (Kogia sima) sperm whales produce the substance in smaller amounts, as they too have cephalopod-rich diets.

Practical perfumery

One of the clearest identifying traits of ambergris is its odour.

Although its link to sperm whales is certain, how the substance ends up floating freely on the ocean is still debated

When removed from the whale, it has been described as possessing a strong faecal smell.

But the scent is said to be more pleasant once the mass dries out. At this stage it is often described as musky.

Herman Melville even referred to this curious smell in his novel Moby Dick. He wrote of the terrible odour of a dead whale, from which 'stole a faint stream of perfume'.

Ambrein, an odourless alcohol, is extracted from ambergris and used to make a perfume's scent last longer.

For hundreds of years, perfumers have categorised the quality of ambergris according to its colour, with the finest perfumes made from pure white varieties. Black ambergris is the least valuable because it contains the least ambrein. 

Ambergris masses change colour with oxidation, which happens when exposed to the sea and air for long periods of time. Between black and white, the colours range from grey to brown. 

Ambergris can spend years floating on the ocean before it is found. The longer it is exposed to the sea, the better quality it is thought to be.

Due to accessibility and cost, synthetic chemicals have now replaced ambrein in all but the most expensive perfumes.

Ambergris has been used for more than just perfume, however. Early Arab civilisations named it anbar and used it as incense, an aphrodisiac and medicine to cure many ailments, including those of the brain, heart and senses.

Is ambergris putting whales at risk?

When whaling was widespread, sperm whales were hunted for ambergris and other valuable products, such as oil.

Sabin says, 'Whales are now protected worldwide, but could still be at risk in the future.

'There are ongoing pressures from some countries to reintroduce whaling as a mechanism for population management and control.' 

All whales are now protected worldwide and cannot be hunted, with very few exception 

Laws regulating the collection and sale of ambergris vary around the world. In some countries ambergris and all other whale-derived products are prohibited, but elsewhere it is either legal or a grey area.

In the UK and Europe, all living species of whales, dolphins and porpoises are protected by law.

However, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) considers ambergris a waste product of sperm whales that occurs naturally, making it legal to collect it from the beach or sea.

Sabin states, 'Synthetic alternatives to ambergris do exist and the use of these should be encouraged.

'This would prevent whales being viewed in any way as a resource that humans can exploit.' 

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ambergris, a solid waxy substance originating in the intestine of the sperm whale (Physeter catodon). In Eastern cultures ambergris is used for medicines and potions and as a spice; in the West it was used to stabilize the scent of fine perfumes. Ambergris floats and washes ashore most frequently on the coasts of

China, Japan, Africa, and the Americas and on tropical islands such as the Bahamas. Because it was picked up as drift along the shores of the North Sea, ambergris was likened to the amber of the same region, and its name is derived from the French words for “gray amber.” Fresh ambergris is black and soft and has a disagreeable odour. When exposed to sun, air, and seawater, however, it hardens and fades to a light gray or yellow, developing a subtle and pleasant fragrance in the process.

ambergris

whaling sperm whale perfume wax

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Pieces are usually small, but one chunk found in the Dutch East Indies weighed about 635 kg (1,400 pounds). Ambergris was formerly thought to come from an unknown creature believed, according to a letter of 1696/97 published by the Royal Society of London, “to swarm as bees, on the sea-shore, or in the

sea.” It was also thought to be a product of underwater volcanoes or the droppings of a seabird. Marco Polo knew that Oriental sailors hunted the sperm whale for ambergris, but he thought that the whales swallowed it with their food. Ambergris is now thought to be a substance protective against intestinal irritation caused by the indigestible horny beaks of squid and cuttlefish that the sperm whale feeds upon. The whale’s intestine can accommodate only small chunks of ambergris, so larger pieces must beregurgitated. It is not known exactly how ambergris is formed or whether the process is normal or pathological, nor has ambergris been found in the sperm whale’s closest relatives, the pygmy and dwarf sperm whales 

Chemically, ambergris contains alkaloids, acids, and a specific compound called ambreine, which is similar to cholesterol. Ambergris was commonly ground into a powder and dissolved in dilute alcohol. Rarely used today due to trade restrictions, its unique musky character added a long-lasting bouquet to the scent of essential flower oils, but, more important, ambergris was a fixative that prevented fragrance from evaporating. Some chemical components of ambergris are now produced synthetically.

What's Ambergris? Behind the $60k Whale-Waste Find

A beachcombing U.K. boy just stumbled upon a chunk of ambergris possibly worth up to $63,000. So what exactly is it, and why is it worth so much?

Sperm whales eject an intestinal slurry called ambergris into the ocean, where the substance hardens as it bobs along. Eventually it gets collected along shores—most often as sheer happenstance, as in the case of eight-year-old Charlie Naysmith in the U.K. a few days ago.

Walking along the beach in Dorset with his dad, the boy found what looked to be a very odd rock. He and his dad used Google to help identify it as ambergris. Weighing more than a pound, it is said to be worth up to U.S. $63,000.

The value of ambergris lies in its role in the fragrance industry. High-end perfumes from houses such as Chanel and Lanvin take advantage of the ability of ambergris to fix scent to human skin.

The smell of ambergris itself varies from piece to piece, ranging from earthy to musky to sweet. If a perfume house's "nose"—the person responsible for choosing scents—likes the aroma, the ambergris can be worth thousands an ounce.

Though it is illegal to use ambergris in perfumes in the U.S. because of the sperm whale's endangered status, foreign markets, especially French, remain strong. (Learn secrets of whale evolution in National Geographic magazine.)

Scientists still don't know for sure the exact origins of ambergris. They do know that when sperm whales have a stomach or throat irritant, often a squid beak, they cover it in a greasy substance and cast it out.

It was once thought the ambergris was ejected by mouth. As of now, the argument seems to be weighted toward the back end of the whale.

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Ambergris

Ambergris Latin: ambra grisea, Old French: ambre gris), ambergrease, or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of isopropyl alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.

Ambergris

Ambergris from the North Sea

Ambergris has been highly valued by perfume makers as a fixative that allows the scent to endure much longer, although it has been mostly replaced by synthetic ambroxide.Dogs are attracted to the smell of ambergris and are sometimes used by ambergris searchers.

Etymology

The English word amber derives from the Arabic word ʿanbar (ultimately from Middle Persian ambar, also ambergris), via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre. The word "amber," in its sense of "ambergris," was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century.

The word "ambergris" comes from the Old French "ambre gris" or "grey amber". The addition of "grey" came about when, in the Romance languages, the sense of the word "amber" was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin), as white or yellow amber (ambre jaune), from as early as the late 13th century.This fossilized resin became[when?] the dominant (and now exclusive) sense of "amber", leaving "ambergris" as the word for the whale secretion.

The archaic alternate spelling "ambergrease" arose as an eggcorn from the phonetic pronunciation of "ambergris," encouraged by the substance's waxy texture

Formation

Ambergris is formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of the sperm whale, and can be found floating on the sea or washed up on coastlines. It is sometimes found in the abdomens of dead sperm whales. Because the beaks of giant squids have been discovered within lumps of ambergris, scientists have theorized that the substance is produced by the whale's gastrointestinal tract to ease the passage of hard, sharp objects that it may have eaten.

Ambergris is passed like fecal matter. It is speculated that an ambergris mass too large to be passed through the intestines is expelled via the mouth, but this remains under debate.Another theory states that an ambergris mass is formed when the colon of a whale is enlarged by a blockage from intestinal worms and cephalopod parts resulting in the death of the whale and the mass being excreted into the sea. Ambergris takes years to form. Christopher Kemp, the author of Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris, says that it is only produced by sperm whales, and only by an estimated one percent of them. Ambergris is rare; once expelled by a whale, it often floats for years before making landfall.The slim chances of finding ambergris and the legal ambiguity involved led perfume makers away from ambergris, and led chemists on a quest to find viable alternatives.

Ambergris is found primarily in the Atlantic Ocean and on the coasts of South Africa; Brazil; Madagascar; the East Indies; The Maldives; China; Japan; India; Australia; New Zealand; and the Molucca Islands. Most commercially-collected ambergris comes from the Bahamas in the Atlantic, particularly New Providence. In 2021, fishermen found a 127 kg (280-pound) piece of ambergris off the coast of Yemen, valued at US$1.5 million.Fossilised ambergris from 1.75 million years ago has also been found.

Physical properties

Ambergris is found in lumps of various shapes and sizes, usually weighing from 15 grams (1⁄2 ounce) to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) or more.When initially expelled by or removed from the whale, the fatty precursor of ambergris is pale white in color(sometimes streaked with black), soft, with a strong fecal smell. Following months to years of photodegradation and oxidation in the ocean, this precursor gradually hardens, developing a dark grey or black color, a crusty and waxy texture, and a peculiar odor that is at once sweet, earthy, marine, and animalic. Its scent has been generally described as a vastly richer and smoother version of isopropanol without its stinging harshness. In this developed condition, ambergris has a specific gravity ranging from 0.780 to 0.926 (meaning it floats in water). It melts at about 62 °C (144 °F) to a fatty, yellow resinous liquid; and at 100 °C (212 °F) it is volatilised into a white vapor. It is soluble in ether, and in volatile and fixed oils.

Chemical properties

Ambergris is relatively nonreactive to acid. White crystals of a terpenoid known as ambrein, discovered by Ružička and Fernand Lardon in 1946, can be separated from ambergris by heating raw ambergris in alcohol, then allowing the resulting solution to cool. Breakdown of the relatively scentless ambrein through oxidation produces ambroxan and ambrinol, the main odor components of ambergris.

Ambrein

Ambroxan

Ambrinol

Ambroxan is now produced synthetically and used extensively in the perfume industry.

Applications

Ambergris has been mostly known for its use in creating perfume and fragrance much like musk. Perfumes can still be found with ambergris.Ambergris has historically been used in food and drink. A serving of eggs and ambergris was reportedly King Charles II of England's favorite dish.A recipe for Rum Shrub liqueur from the mid 19th century called for a thread of ambergris to be added to rum, almonds, cloves, cassia, and the peel of oranges in making a cocktail from The English and Australian Cookery Book. It has been used as a flavoring agent in Turkish coffeeand in hot chocolate in 18th century Europe.The substance is considered an aphrodisiac in some cultures.

Ancient Egyptians burned ambergris as incense, while in modern Egypt ambergris is used for scenting cigarettes.The ancient Chinese called the substance "dragon's spittle fragrance".During the Black Death in Europe, people believed that carrying a ball of ambergris could help prevent them from contracting plague. This was because the fragrance covered the smell of the air which was believed to be a cause of plague.

During the Middle Ages, Europeans used ambergris as a medication for headaches, colds, epilepsy, and other ailments.

Legality

 International Whaling Commission § 1982 moratorium

From the 18th to the mid-19th century, the whaling industry prospered. By some reports, nearly 50,000 whales, including sperm whales, were killed each year. Throughout the 1800s, "millions of whales were killed for their oil, whalebone, and ambergris" to fuel profits, and they soon became endangered as a species as a result.Due to studies showing that the whale populations were being threatened, the International Whaling Commission instituted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. Although ambergris is not harvested from whales, many countries also ban the trade of ambergris as part of the more general ban on the hunting and exploitation of whales.

Urine, faeces, and ambergris (that has been naturally excreted by a sperm whale) are waste products not considered parts or derivatives of a CITES species and are therefore not covered by the provisions of the convention.

Illegal

Australia – Under federal law, the export and import of ambergris for commercial purposes is banned by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The various states and territories have additional laws regarding ambergris.

United States – The possession and trade of ambergris is prohibited by the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

India – Sale or possession is illegal under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.

Legal

United Kingdom

France

Switzerland

Maldives

ambergris 

Ambergris, or whale vomit, is a solid waxy substance originating in the intestine of the whale, and it is frequently discovered floating on the water or washing up on the coasts. It can also be found in the stomachs of dead sperm whales.

Freshly produced ambergris has a fecal odor, but acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages. It is highly valued by perfume makers as a fixative that allows the scent to endure much longer,

The name 'ambergris' is derived from the old French words Amber and Gris, which means grey amber.

Rare, precious, smells like whale: hunting for ambergris in New Zealand

On wild beaches, secretive harvesters seek the coveted whale byproduct that can make a fortune in an instant

Frans Beuse sits at his kitchen table, examining what looks like an array of rocks. Using a slim, sharpened blade he scrapes each in turn, producing five mounds of powder: bright white, deep caramel, tarry black.

Lighting a candle, he holds a thick needle into the flame, then into the powder, which smokes and bubbles into glossy liquid. Beuse leans forward, closing his eyes, and draws a thin tendril of smoke into his left nostril.

Sweet and ambery,” he says. “It sits on my lips, so I can constantly taste it.”

The process has an illicit air, but the substance Beuse is handling not a drug. It is ambergris, a form of whale dung, exceedingly rare and valuable, sought after by perfumers and gathered by secretive harvesters among the flotsam of New Zealand’s stormy coastlines. Frans Beuse and his wife, Adrienne, are among the country’s largest dealers.

It’s a trade known for its secrecy. Few ambergris-gatherers will speak to reporters on record, and some are fiercely – even violently – protective of their patches. Now, the centuries-old trade is being reshaped by human influence: as climate change alters weather patterns and ocean currents, patterns of ambergris distribution are shifting too.

The smell of a whale

Nothing else really smells like ambergris, except sperm whales,” says Kane Fleury, a curator at Otago Museum. He knows that smell well; the museum sometimes works with the Department of Conservation to examine whale remains or assist when they beach. “There’s this sweet sort of odour associated with them,” he says, “a real nasal-filling marine mammal essence, fatty and odorous and quite heady, the smell of a whale.”

That scent penetrates ambergris, which forms in the whale’s digestive tract to protect it from damage by the sharp edges of squid beaks and ocean debris. It endures as it is tossed by tides, bleached by the sun and parched by salt. “Every piece as it rolls around, it is curing, getting smaller and denser and drier on the inside … [until] it’ll be white or almost white all the way through, there’s no moisture left,” says Adrienne. That process takes hundreds of years.

When mature, ambergris is valued by perfumers for its properties as a fixative, as well as its own fragrance, which can range from deep, faecal animal musk, to a sweeter dark caramel, or light and powdery in the higher grades.

Higher-quality ambergris is worth more than $27 a gram. Because it can occur in huge chunks, fishers have over the years reported finds worth as much as £1.5m. The money at stake can make the hunt for ambergris fraught and occasionally dangerous.

A fortune, found on a beach

On a wide expanse of beach on the west coast of the North Island, the Beuses meander along the high tide mark. Huge dunes rise up beside them, creased by wind. This coastline is known for its wild stretches of sand, powerful currents and enormous surf. It’s also known as a hunting ground for ambergris, with westerly winds bringing flotsam ashore from the Tasman sea.

The sand of the 100km beach is crisscrossed with tire marks.

“They [collectors] drive along it night and day,” says Adrienne.

The coastline has also been the site of bitter conflicts between hunters. In 2004, court reports detailed a dispute between two ambergris collectors who had been in business together. One man ran the other down on the beach in his truck, the court heard. The driver, who was ultimately acquitted, said his ex-business partner had attacked his car with a PVC pipe and smashed the windscreen.

The Beuses no longer come to this beach alone – they say they have received threats from competing ambergris collectors. “People get beaten up,” says Frans. “A million-and-a-half dollars. Do you think someone’s not gonna beat you up for that?” 

Ambergris is treated by those … collecting it almost as if it’s like a nefarious activity that is illegal, but actually isn’t,” says Fleury. “It’s a really bizarre situation with the level of secrecy and mystery around it – and I guess that’s because there are unknown quantities of money associated with finds and people want to protect their patch,” he says. “Which I guess is why people are so infatuated with it when they hear about this fortune that can just be found on a beach.”

The subjective nature of ambergris identification can also lead to conflict. The substance is impossible to identify by looks alone: aged ambergris can resemble pumice, sandstone or hardened lard, and fresher finds can be easily confused with stones, fossilised wood or even dog poo. In New Zealand newspapers, purported ambergris finds are a semi-regular feature – but often they turn out to be disappointing lumps of plastic or simply unusual-looking rocks.

The possibility of extravagant wealth can awaken a startling capacity for self-delusion, says Anton van Helden, marine science adviser to New Zealand’s department of conservation. “Findings so often are not ambergris, and people are reluctant to be dissuaded. They often assume that material washed up on beaches is ambergris and that it will generate vast wealth for them,” he says. Most often, those who present ambergris for his assessment have in fact discovered “lumps of crud”.

“I have asked people ‘does it smell pleasant?’ and they swear black and blue that it does … but when they bring it in it smells of dead sponge or putrid, rancid fat.”

Changing seas

As the climate crisis changes ocean landscapes, local collectors worry that true finds could become rarer still.

In August, scientists published a paper in the journal Ecological Indicators, detailing how global heating will change the migration patterns of blue and sperm whales in New Zealand, driving them southward. Ambergris can float in oceans for centuries before drifting onshore, so a change in migratory patterns alone is unlikely to transform its distribution. But the heating of the oceans is also bringing about changes in the winds and currents that bring it to beaches. As the oceans heat, some currents speed up, while others slow or even collapse completely.

“Some years back, we started getting reports more and more frequently of coastal changes happening – that [collectors] and their parents and grandparents hadn’t seen before,” she says. “Changes in the wildlife that was being seen, what appeared to be changes in coastal currents.”

Beuse has witnessed those shifts becoming more pronounced.

“The climate and the weather patterns were changing,” Beuse says. “The winter pattern that we relied on, to bring the best ambergris producing seasons – that period of winter westerly winds and storms – was contracting.”.

One of the distinctive attributes of ambergris has always been its formation around squid beaks – the embedded, shining fragments were a telltale sign. These days, Fleury says, it increasingly forms around plastic. In a central piece of the Otago Museum’s display, an ambergris lump takes an unusual coiling shape: wrapped around a length of polyester rope. It’s a shift that ambergris collectors are acutely aware of.

These people, they notice every nook and cranny on the beach,” Beuse says.

“There was talk around the ambergris community long before you were noticing it as a main headline in the media. That something’s going on with mother nature.”

Ambergris, The Rare ‘Whale Vomit’ Used In Perfume

Ambergris is a waxy substance sometimes found in the digestive system of a sperm whale — and it can be worth millions.

Perfumes famously employ ingredients like exotic flowers, delicate oils, and citrus fruits to produce a compelling scent. They also sometimes use a lesser-known ingredient called ambergris.

Though ambergris may conjure up images of something beautiful and soft, it’s something totally different. Commonly referred to as “whale vomit,” ambergris is an intestinal slurry that comes from the guts of sperm whales

And, yes, it’s a highly coveted perfume ingredient. In fact, chunks of it can sell for thousands or even millions of dollars.

Long before ambergris reaches perfume bottles — or even fancy cocktails and delicacies — it can be found in its pure form within the guts of sperm whales. Why sperm whales? It all has to do with squids.

Sperm whales like to eat squids, but they can’t digest their sharp beaks. Though they usually vomit them up, the beaks sometimes make it into the whale’s gut. And that’s where ambergris comes into play.

As the beaks traverse the whale’s intestines, the whale starts to produce ambergris. Christopher Kemp, the author of Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris described the likely process as such:

“As a growing mass, [the beaks] are pushed farther along the intestines and become a tangled indigestible solid, saturated with feces, which begins to obstruct the rectum… gradually the feces saturating the compacted mass of squid beaks becomes like cement, binding the slurry together permanently.”

Scientists aren’t exactly sure what happens at this point, though they think “whale vomit” is a misnomer for ambergris, since it’s likely a fecal matter as opposed to actual vomit. The whale might manage to pass the ambergris slurry and live to see another day (and probably eat more squid). Or, the obstruction might rupture the whale’s rectum, killing the creature.

Either way, scientists suspect that the production of ambergris is rare. It likely only happens in one percent of the world’s 350,000 sperm whales, and ambergris has only been found in five percent of sperm whale carcasses.

In any case, it’s what happens after the ambergris leaves the whale that interests the makers of fine perfumes around the world.

Fresh ambergris is black and has a stomach-churning odor. But as the waxy substance bobs through the sea and spends time under the sun, it begins to harden and lighten. Eventually, ambergris takes on a gray or even a yellowish color. And it also starts to smell much better.

Kemp described its smell as a “strange bouquet of old wood, and earth, and compost and dung, and wide open places.” In 1895, The New York Times wrote that it smelled “like the blending of new-mown hay, the damp woodsy fragrance of a fern-copse, and the faintest possible perfume of the violet.”

This strange, alluring smell — and properties that help a scent stick to human skin — has made ambergris a valuable substance. Chunks of it found on the beach have often fetched tens of thousands of dollars.

That’s one of the reasons why people have been scouring beaches for so-called “whale vomit” for hundreds of years.

Ambergris Throughout The Ages

Humans have been using ambergris for a variety of purposes for over 1,000 years. Early Arab civilizations called it anbar and used it as incense, an aphrodisiac, and even medicine. During the 14th century, wealthy citizens hung it around their necks to ward off the bubonic plague. And King Charles II of Britain was even known to eat it with his eggs.

People knew that ambergris had mysterious, coveted properties — but they weren’t sure what it was. In fact, the very name for ambergris comes from the French ambre gris, or gray amber. Yet people weren’t sure if ambergris was a precious stone, a fruit, or something else entirely.

They had some theories. Various people and civilizations have described ambergris as dragon spittle, the secretion of some unknown creature, remnants of underwater volcanoes, or even seabird droppings.Humans have been using ambergris for a variety of purposes for over 1,000 years. Early Arab civilizations called it anbar and used it as incense, an aphrodisiac, and even medicine. During the 14th century, wealthy citizens hung it around their necks to ward off the bubonic plague. And King Charles II of Britain was even known to eat it with his eggs.

Ninth-century Muslim writers described it as a regurgitated substance — helping to establish the “whale vomit” myth — and a 15th-century encyclopedia of herbal medicines postulated that ambergris may have been tree sap, seafoam, or perhaps even a type of fungus.

But whatever ambergris was, it soon became clear to these people that it could be extremely valuable. Even Melville wrote in Moby Dick of the irony that “fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale.”

Indeed, “whale vomit” remains a highly coveted substance today. When a group of Yemeni fishermen stumbled upon a 280-pound chunk of the stuff in the belly of a dead whale in 2021, they sold it for $1.5 million.

How “Whale Vomit” Is Used Today

Ambergris found in the North Sea.

Today, ambergris remains a luxury ingredient. It’s used in high-end perfumes and sometimes even in cocktails. (For example, there’s an ambergris drink in London called the “Moby Dick Sazerac.”)

But ambergris is not without significant controversy. Whalers often hunt sperm whales in search of “whale vomit” — as well as whale oil — which has decimated their populations. Today, there are laws to protect them.

In the United States, for example, ambergris is banned under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. But in the European Union, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species states that ambergris is something that is “naturally excreted” — and thus it can be bought and sold legally.

That said, there is a waning need for pure ambergris in most perfumes today. Synthetic versions of the so-called “whale vomit” began to emerge as early as the 1940s. That makes the need for scouring the beaches for amber rocks, or even killing sperm whales, less pressing for ambergris hunters.

Or does it? Some have argued that nothing can compare to pure ambergris. “The raw materials are absolutely magical,” said Mandy Aftel, a perfumer and an author who writes books on fragrances. “Its aroma affects everything else and that’s why people have pursued it for hundreds of years.”

So, the next time you spritz on a fancy perfume, just remember that its scent may have originated in the “inglorious bowels” of a sperm whale.