What is it about?
Ambergris from sperm whales, sometimes found on beaches, is valuable in perfumery and has been for over a thousand years. However, no-one until now has had any idea how long ambergris might stay floating at sea or may last stranded on beaches (known as jetsam). We have now shown that some jetsam ambergris on beaches is over 1000 years old!
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Why is it important?
This is curiosity-driven research: we just wondered how old some beached -up ambergris might be. Now we know! Happy reading!
Perspectives
We loved finding out about this enigmatic substance, ambergris. Although known and used for over thousand years, no one suspected some samples might actually be 1000 years old! We are continuing our studies and asking questions like: How is ambergris made? Does it only come from sperm whales? How widely distributed is it? Are the chemicals in ambergris unique, or are they found in other things too?
Steven Rowland
University of Plymouth
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The age of ambergris, Natural Product Research, November 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/14786419.2018.1523163.
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