Toothed whale melon consists of fat, and the skull of any such creature containing a melon will have a large depression. The melon size varies between species, the bigger it is, the more dependent they are on it. A beaked whale, for example, has a small bulge sitting on top of its skull, whereas a sperm whale's head is filled mainly with the melon. Bottlenose dolphins have been found to have signature whistles unique to a specific individual. These whistles are used for dolphins to communicate with one another by identifying an individual. It can be seen as the dolphin equivalent of
On Top of the Whale any such encounter is inevitably a game in which the 'objects' of ethnographic inquire are dissimulating themselves and this dissimulation is inevitably subject to further distortions in its interpretations". Several themes that come forth in "On Top of the Whale" include Life, Survival, Love, Reality, Illusion, Marxism and Civilization. It could be treated as a parodic version of a problematic cross-cultural "first contact", in colonial settings. Its emphasis is on the anthropologists attempt to understand native culture and unintentionally harming it as a result. On Top of the Whale On Top of the Whale () is a 1982 Dutch surreal