Mocha Dick (; died 1838) was a male

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...

that lived in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near

Mocha Island Mocha Island ( es, link=no, Isla Mocha ) is a small Chilean island located west of the coast of Arauco Province in the Pacific Ocean. The island is approximately in area, with a small chain of mountains running roughly in north-south direction. ...

, off the central coast of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. American explorer and author Jeremiah N. Reynolds published his account, "Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal" in 1839 in ''

The Knickerbocker ''The Knickerbocker'', or ''New-York Monthly Magazine'', was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865. Its long-term editor and publisher was Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose "Editor's Ta ...

''. Mocha Dick was an

albino Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albino. Varied use and interpretation of the term ...

and partially inspired

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...

's 1851 novel ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby- ...

''. Delbanco, Andrew. ''Melville, His World and Work''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005: 167–168.

History

Mocha Dick survived many skirmishes (by Reynolds' account at least 100) with whalers before he was eventually killed. He was large and powerful, capable of wrecking small craft with his

fluke Fluke may refer to: Biology * Fluke (fish), a species of marine flatfish * Fluke (tail), the lobes of the tail of a cetacean, such as dolphins or whales, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Greek ...

. Explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds gathered first-hand observations of Mocha Dick and published his account, "Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal", in the May 1839 issue of ''The Knickerbocker''. Reynolds described Mocha Dick as "an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength... ''white as wool''.* J. N. Reynolds.
Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal
" ''The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine''. Vol. 13, No. 5, May 1839, pp. 377–392. According to Reynolds, Mocha Dick's head was covered with

barnacle A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in eros ...

s, which gave him a rugged appearance. The whale also had a peculiar method of spouting: Mocha Dick was most likely first encountered and attacked sometime before 1810 off

. His survival of the first encounters coupled with his unusual appearance quickly made him famous among

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

whalers. Many captains attempted to hunt him after rounding

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...

. Mocha Dick was quite docile, sometimes swimming alongside the ship, but once attacked he retaliated with ferocity and cunning, and was widely feared by harpooners. When agitated he would sound and then

breach Breach, Breached, or The Breach may refer to: Places * Breach, Kent, United Kingdom * Breach, West Sussex, United Kingdom * ''The Breach'', Great South Bay in the State of New York People * Breach (DJ), an Electronic/House music act * Miroslava ...

so aggressively that his entire body would sometimes come completely out of the water.Whipple, A. B. C. ''Yankee Whalers in the South Seas''. Doubleday, 1954. In Reynolds' account, Mocha Dick was killed in 1838, after he appeared to come to the aid of a distraught cow whose calf had just been slain by the whalers. His body was 70 feet long and yielded 100 barrels of oil, along with some

ambergris Ambergris ( or , la, ambra grisea, fro, ambre gris), ''ambergrease'', or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a mari ...

—a substance used in the making of perfumes and at times worth more per ounce than

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

. He also had twenty harpoons in his body. A decade later, ''The Knickerbocker'' reported another sighting of Mocha Dick in the Arctic Ocean, concluding "Vive Mocha Dick!".

Legacy

Mocha Dick was not, apparently, the only white whale in the sea. A Swedish whaler claimed to have taken a very old white whale off the coast of Brazil in 1859. In 1902, the New Bedford whaling bark ''Platina'', captained by Thomas McKenzie, harpooned and killed an albino sperm whale near the

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

in the Atlantic Ocean, using a harpoon tipped with an explosive device. Amos Smalley harpooned the white whale and recounted his experience to ''Reader's Digest''. He remembers Captain McKenzie estimating by the wear on the whale's teeth that it was "at least a hundred years old, maybe two hundred". Smalley was a guest at the premiere of

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

's film ''

Moby Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whit ...

'', 1956, where he was introduced as "the man who killed Moby Dick". In 1952, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine reported the harpooning of a white whale off the coast of Peru. Since 1991, there have been sightings reported of a white humpback whale near Australia, nicknamed

Migaloo The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

. In 2012, a white humpback, nicknamed Willow the White Whale, was filmed off the coast of Norway. Sightings of white sperm whales have been recorded off

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

in 2006 and 2015.sighting of white whale in Sardinia
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References

External links

*Last, David, et al.
Collisions Between Ships and Whales
, ''Marine Mammal Science'', 17(1):35–75 (January 2001) *Rogers, Ben.
From Mocha Dick to Moby Dick: Fishing for Clues to Moby's Name and Color
, ''Names: A Journal of Onamastics''. Vol. 46, No. 4, Dec. 1988, pp. 263–276. *Tierney, Erik.
Moby Dick - Mocha Dick
, ''All About Stuff''. {{Moby-Dick 18th-century animal births 1838 animal deaths Individual albino animals Moby-Dick American folklore Maritime folklore Individual sperm whales Chilean legends Whaling in Chile

History

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading

External links