How large? About 50 feet (15 meters) in this casethe size of an average male sperm whale.

The conservator seen above is sweeping ten years of dust off a sperm whale skeleton in the museum's whale room, which is now closed for cleaning and expected to reopen in July.

The sperm whale, weighing on average 40 tons, is the largest toothed whale on the planet. Whalers hunted the species almost to extinction for its spermaceti oil, blubber, and meat throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

Herman Melville famously brought the story of a sperm-whale hunt to life in 1851 with his novel Moby Dick.

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