AmbergrisBeware – 12 August 2020
There is some reluctance to enter the “what is ambergris” debate given the amount of myth and misinformation spread throughout the internet, however the fictions created and supported by the synthetic ambrein manufacturers and their exponents needs to be dealt with; so here goes…
First and briefly, what ambergris is not. Ambergris is not whale vomit. Its unclear where this fiction derived but it probably has been supported in the past by the perfume industry. Ambergris could only come from one of two holes in the whale; front or back. Its probable that the front sounded better than the back hole. Nor is ambergris some slurry or substance produced in the whales digestive system to protect it from squid beaks. This hypothesis was formed by a European scientist early in the 1980s. It was not widely accepted at the time however when the major synthetic ambrein manufacturers (Firmenich and Givaudan) began marketing their synthetic ambergris substitutes around 2005 this theory was embraced and expanded by the corrupt academics (such as former Prof. Steven Rowland) that were sponsored by the huge Swiss corporations. This theory makes ambergris sound gross and part of the whale feces, which it is not.
Put in summary, ambergris is the Sperm Whales pheromone compound.
A whale is a mammal that lives in water therefore we know less about it than we do the land mammals we live among. An analogy to better known animals will help understand the purpose of ambergris. Most people would have observed a dog lifting its leg against a tree, power-pole or post and briefly urinating only to walk along and repeat on another tree, post etc. Others may have seen a cat lift its tail and spray a tree or bush and repeat. The dog or cat is not merely urinating, but it is dispersing its unique pheromone and thereby marking territory. It is not the urine that contains the pheromone however. The pheromone compound begins in a gland or glands that are most often associated with major urinary proteins (Mups). However these are not confined to urine and can be produced by the preputial gland or anal gland and others. Mups. produce not only the animals pheromone but also proteins that provide a fixative (to maintain the animals pheromone once dispersed) and an exalter ( to transmit the pheromone as widely as possible). It may be that ambrein is a type of Mups. In the case of the dog and cat the urine is merely the carrier. The animal pheromone (Mups.) is introduced from the gland into the urinary tract via a (bile) duct close to the exit of the animals genital and its relationship with urine is very brief. Once the urine has dispersed the pheromone the urine then dries off allowing the Mups. to work. These Mups. are not confined to urine as referred above. They are also produced in anal glands (notably in ruminants) and therefore the animal pheromone will exist in or on freshly laid manure. Those on farms may have noted that dogs are partial to rolling in freshly laid cow or horse manure. It is not the manure that the dog seeks to smell of but is the pheromone that is dispersed with it. The base pheromone scent is universal among mammals, which is why humans use civet, musk. ambergris etc.
A whale lives in the ocean and consequently urine based pheromone transmission is useless. Instead it extrudes a solid based pheromone compound. However the whale only excretes liquid feces. It cannot digest solid material. Ambergris is formed in a gland and is extruded via a tube to a duct close to the end of the whales intestine where it meets its rectum. The ambergris is extruded involuntarily every time the whale contracts its gut to excrete. A crude analogy could be the stripes in toothpaste, as the white paste is squeezed out a measure of coloured paste is introduced close to the tip of the tube. A blob or two of ambergris is extruded and is carried by the whales liquid feces the last metre or two and then into the sea.
A major component of ambergris is ambrein, which is the primary ingredient sought by perfumers. Ambrein is extracted from raw ambergris via a process called maceration, either in alcohol or oil. Ambrein contains fixative and exaltation qualities and of course contains the universal pheromone of mammals. In this way ambergris is very similar if not identical to the offerings of the the dog or cat as described above.
Different sized lumps of ambergris.
A normal blob of ambergris extruded in normal conditions would be about 7 to 10 cm in diameter and about 20 cm long. The whales gland produces and extrudes ambergris with perfect specific gravity to reflect the depth in the ocean the whale is in at the time. The ambergris blob will remain at that depth for maybe 1 or 2 days before starting to slowly ascend to the surface. This helps provide the three dimensions to the whales territory, length, breadth and depth. These small blobs may account for many of the golf-ball sized pieces of partly eroded ambergris that people occasionally pick up on a beach.
As referred sperm whales cannot digest solids, however it does inadvertently ingest solids. Sperm whales primary food sources are squid and sharks. Perhaps the better known food source is squid which includes beaks and quills as solids that are not digested by the whale. As the squid meal moves through the whales digestive system the hooked beaks become entangled sometimes forming a ball shape. The last approximately one metre of the whale digestive system is its flaccid and wrinkly rectum, a tube of about 1 metre long and about 15 cm wide. If the cluster of hooked squid beaks is larger that 15 cm then it is likely to get snagged on the wrinkly wall of the whales rectum. Liquid feces will past freely through the cluster but the ambergris extruded involuntarily will get caught in it. This ambergris will build up over time forming a crude ball shape. In most cases once the cluster of beaks has been covered in ambergris the ball will be ejected via a high pressure defecation. These balls may account for the partly eroded blocks of ambergris of between 20 to 50 cm that are occasionally but rarely found on a beach.
However sometimes more than one cluster of squid beaks can occur simultaneously or the whale has inadvertently swallowed the by-catch to a meal of sharks (sharks eat seals and sea lions and whales hunt sharks while they are engaged in a feeding frenzy). If another cluster of squid beaks moves into the whale rectum while another is in place then this will provide a wedging effect causing the two clusters to jam up the rectum. The liquid feces still go through the clusters until it fills up with ambergris. Because the walls of the whales rectum are flaccid and stretchy the feces and ambergris will pass around the ball with the ambergris being caught and the liquid feces being ejected to sea. It is less likely that the whale will eject such a large oddly shaped block of ambergris and will continue to grow the block until the rectum ruptures and the whale dies of natural causes. This large block, known also as a coprolith will remain in the dead whale until the it has been devoured by sharks thus releasing the coprolith into the ocean. These coproliths were prized by the perfume industry because they provided a large and consistent product.
1% ?
As far as ambergris is concerned the general media (newscasters etc.) are chronic purveyors of misinformation. Among the barrage of myth and outright lies they publish is that ambergris is produced by only 1% of sperm whales. This poorly formed hypothesis derives the whaling industry of last century. The whalers reported that about 1% of whales they harpooned had ambergris in their rectum. As referred above ambergris is mostly ejected normally and on very rare occasions (maybe 1%) ambergris becomes stuck in a rectal obstruction. It is believed, by those scientists not obsessed with corruption, that most if not all adult sperm whales produce ambergris. This would be consistent with land mammals whose genders both produce pheromone.