Moby Dick (whale) (larger than any officially recorded sperm whale) and that Moby Dick is possibly the largest sperm whale that ever lived. Ahab tells the crew that the White Whale can be told because it has an unusual spout, a deformed jaw, three punctures in his right fluke and several harpoons embedded in his side from unsuccessful hunts. Yet Ishmael insists that what invested the whale with “natural terror” was that “unexampled, intelligent malignity” which he had shown in his assaults. When he fled before “exalting pursuers,” giving every symptom of alarm, he would suddenly turn round and stave their boats to
Cuvier's beaked whale another that had stranded itself at Aresquiès, Hérault, in May of the same year, and found the two to be identical. There is no connection between Cuvier's beaked whale and the mythical Ziphius, or "Water-Owl", a creature in medieval folklore which had the characteristics of both an owl and a fish. Its dorsal fin was said to be sword-shaped, and pierced ship's hulls, while the beak was said to resemble an owl's head. The body of Cuvier's beaked whale is robust and cigar-shaped, similar to those of other beaked whales, and can be difficult to distinguish from many of the