Whale carcass and remaining there for a few hours would relief symptoms of rheumatism. Whales continue to be prevalent in modern literature. For example, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" features a "great white whale" as the main antagonist for Ahab, who eventually is killed by it. The whale is an albino sperm whale, considered by Melville to be the largest type of whale, and is partly based on the historically attested bull whale Mocha Dick. Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories" includes the story of "How the Whale got in his Throat". Niki Caro's film the "Whale Rider" has a Māori girl ride
Cryptid whale female individual on Orkney, saying its dorsal fins was similar to a "mizzen mast", and the whale, based on Sibbald’s account, was described as "P. tursio". However, naturalist Georges Cuvier disregarded Sibbald’s claim as a bad description of the carcass, as well as dismissing the name "P. tursio". Another alleged sighting was off the Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia, Canada on September 27, 1946, where the creature was apparently trapped there for 2 days. Its length was estimated to be between . The Alula whale, or the Alula Killer, or "Orcinus mörzer-bruynsus", was discussed and illustrated for the first time, but