LONDON – There's a lesson here: the next time you're strolling along the beach and you happen to come across a hard-to-identify, unpleasant smelling lump of yellowy-brown matter, don't just ignore it. Because there's a small chance that substance might be whale vomit, and if it is then you may just have stumbled across a ridiculously unlikely fortune.
You wouldn't think there'd be a big market for solidified bodily fluids that have been thrown up by bulky aquatic mammals, but – as an unammed dog walker in Wales found out recently – it turns out there absolutely is.
In the business they call the substance Ambergris; it's produced in a sperm whale's intestines and gets used in the manufacture of perfume. The lump found recently on a beach in Anglesey – reported by Wales Online as being around 8 inches long and just over 1 kg in weight – could be set to fetch a whopping £7,000 ($10,763) in auction.
Just look at this cheerful tweet if you don't believe us:
Back at work to discover a big lump of ambergris (whale vomit) consigned for the next auction, worth a fortune pic.twitter.com/QHk47Pr5bi— Adam Partridge (@apauctioneers) August 25, 2015
The vomit will be auctioned on Sept. 25 by Adam Partridge auctioneers in Macclesfield.
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Unsurprisingly, some people were a little confused by the auctioneers' Facebook post – but Adam Partridge auctioneers were quick to defend their vomit.
“I’ve never had one like this before at auction," said auctioneer Chris Surfleet. "The price received will be dependent on the quality.
“Ambergris is formed in a sperm whale’s digestive system and is passed either as vomit or as part of the feces. Scientists believe it is used to coat irritating objects in the whale’s intestines.
“The vendor was walking his dog on a beach in Anglesey when he came across it. He thought it might have some value and got in touch with us.”
Hear that, folks? Sounds like it might be time to chuck away those boring metal detectors and start hunting for misshapen, strangely coloured rocks instead. That's where the real money is.