Talk:Sperm whale

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This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 8, 2004.

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Date	Process	Result
September 26, 2003	Featured article candidate	Promoted
April 19, 2008	Featured article review	Demoted
November 9, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed
August 6, 2013	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
Current status: Former featured article, current good article

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 August 2020 and 10 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cemacquarrie (article contribs). Peer reviewers: BrookeBarlow, Chansel11.

Prehensile Penis?

This unusual musculature should be described in some detail for all aquatic mammals, as a correct body positioning in the water (for successful copulation) may be more difficult to obtain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Homebuilding (talk • contribs) 14:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Minor Edit Request: In taxonomy side bar please change the order of sperm whale from "Artiodactyla" to "Cetartiodactyla".

This is a request for a minor edit to the taxonomy side bar of sperm whale: please change the order of sperm whale from "Artiodactyla" to "Cetartiodactyla".

More details: The side bar listing the taxonomy of sperm whale was confusing to me the first time I looked at it, as the name of the order listed in the sidebar is "Artiodactyla". However in the taxonomy section, the text states the order as "Cetartiodactyla". This was especially confusing because I was trying to do a quick comparison between the order of sperm whale and dolphin and a quick look using only the taxonomy sidebar showed me different orders for the two related species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:F900:57B0:2815:E9D4:708E:1ABB (talk) 00:00, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Diving physiology and adaptations

The sperm whale is notable fo diving capability and physiological adaptation, but I see very little in the article about this aspect. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 18:39, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Found it under Sperm whale#Biological systems. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 18:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Broken link

At the end of 6.2 Relations with other species there is a broken link to the article on minke whales.

Redsoxfan2495 (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Greyjoy^talk 09:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Typo in McClain et. al paper on sperm whale size distribution

Hello, in the Size, section, I noticed an issue with the statement cited from McClain et. al that 95% of sperm whales were below 15 meters. Even though that claim is pulled directly from the paper's discussion section, it's actually inconsistent with the data from the figures. Table 3 shows that the 95th percentile size from the IWC data is 15.85 meters, with 15.50m at 90%, and 14.3m at 75%. We can also look at the histogram in Figure 34 and clearly see that more than 5% of the measured catches were beyond the 15-meter mark. From eyeballing it, it seems at least ~76,000 sperm whales measured beyond 15 meters. That would roughly equal about 15% of sperm whales measured. Now given how that sentence in the discussion still cites 14.3 meters as the 75% percentile size, it's still clearly referring to the sample presented in the study. It can be concluded that the 15-meter/95th percentile claim is a typo. It was probably intended to say that 95% of measured sperm whales were below 16 meters or maybe 85% were below 15 meters. In hindsight, this makes sense given that even modern photogrammetry supports that the average bull sperm whale physically matures at a length beyond 15 meters. Therefore, it would be odd a little odd that within the historical size distribution of sperm whales, that only 5% of the individuals actually achieved this length. 15% makes more sense, and when calculating from a male-only sample, this would likely yield an even larger number.

So anyway, that claim regarding the 95th-percentile length for sperm whales should probably be changed to 15.85 meters, citing the figures rather than the discussion. If anyone noticed something I missed in this, let me know.

I think you're correct. Issues like this come up a lot, unfortunately. I think we can change the number to 15.85m and still be citing the source correctly. I'll have a go at rewriting the section.Steveoc 86 (talk) 12:25, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Cerebrum size: largest in relative terms?

i assume this means vs body size and that is almost certainly false given how small the brain itself is relative to whale body size.