- A professor found a lump of ambergris, or "floating gold," worth 500,000 euros in a dead whale.
- The rare substance, which is normally found floating in the sea, is used in high-end perfumes.
After a dead sperm whale washed up on a beach on the Spanish Island of La Palma, Professor Antonio Fernández was determined to find the cause of the animal's death.
Battling waves crashing over the huge carcass washed up on a beach, the head of the Institute of Animal Health and Food Security at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria made a startling discovery — a 21-pound stuck to part of its intestine.
The stone, which was worth 500,000 euros, or around $545,000, was made of ambergris — a strange, naturally-occurring substance that's known as "floating gold."
The origin of the mysterious substance, which is often snagged floating in the sea, was only discovered with the advent of large-scale whaling in the 1800s, when it was found that it was produced by sperm whales, according to the Natural History Museum.
A large part of the whales' diet is made up of cephalopods like squid. While most of the indigestible parts are vomited out by the whales, some bits find their way into the intestines and stick together, per the museum. This mass continues to grow and eventually becomes a lump of ambergris.
How does a whale's intestine mass come to be worth half a million dollars?
Its immense value comes from its scarcity and its use in perfumes. Ambergris' scent can vary from sweet to musky,
According to National Geographic, if the person in charge of choosing aromas at a perfumery likes the smell, ambergris can be worth thousands per ounce.
It is also prized for an odorless alcohol called ambrein, which is often extracted from the ambergris.
The amount of ambrein — which is used to make perfume aromas last longer — in the ambergris is key. It can be judged by the color of the ambergris, with black having the least ambrein and white the most. Top perfumes are usually made with white ambergris, while substitute chemicals are used in cheaper ones.
While it is illegal to use the substance in perfumes in the US, ambergris is still a common ingredient in French perfumes.
Richard Sabin, the curator of marine mammals at the Natural History Museum, said that "whales are now protected worldwide, but could still be at risk in the future."
He added that "synthetic alternatives to ambergris do exist, and the use of these should be encouraged," as it "would prevent whales being viewed in any way as a resource that humans can exploit."
In 2021, a group of fishermen in the Gulf of Aden sold a chunk of ambergris worth around $1.5 million to a buyer in the United Arab Emirates. The 35 fishermen purchased houses, cars, and boats from their profits, the BBC reported.