Your brain only weighs about 3 pounds, but a sperm whale's brain can weigh up to 17 pounds. But humans do have much bigger brains proportionally-speaking: grey matter occupies 2 percent of our body weight and a meager .02 percent of a sperm whale’s. So maybe we should just call it a draw.

When early whalers began finding this material (which is generated by a barrel-like organ inside the animal’s head), they assumed it had some kind of reproductive function and dubbed the stuff “spermaceti” 

Wondering about this goo’s function? Join the club. For centuries, naturalists have tried to discern its biological role. Some suspect that spermaceti helps regulate buoyancy while others think it evolved as a shock-absorber to protect the brains of hormonal, head-butting males during mating season.  A third hypothesis focuses on sound—perhaps it helps shape long-distance sperm whale vocalizations.

This stranger-than-fiction incident unfolded in the South Pacific on November 20, 1820, when a gigantic male slammed into a New England whaling vessel called The Essex. Beaten and battered, her 21 crewman abandoned the sinking ship, leaping onto three oar-driven whaleboats before she went under. Afterwards, a toilsome, 3000-mile journey across open, unforgiving ocean awaited these rattled survivors. Several perished en route and many of their companions clung to life by resorting to cannibalism before finally getting rescued off the coast of Chile.