What type of whale is Moby Dick?

Moby Dick is a sperm whale in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

He is described as an enormous white whale, marked by scars and a distinctive, wrinkled forehead. Captain Ahab has lost a leg to him and spends the voyage of the Pequod pursuing him for revenge.

Sperm whales were especially important to nineteenth-century whaling because their heads contained spermaceti, a valuable waxy substance used in lamps, candles, and lubricants. Their size, intelligence, and ability to dive deeply also made them formidable quarry.

A common mix-up is calling Moby Dick a “great white whale” as though that were a species. The whiteness is his unusual coloration; the species is the sperm whale. Melville drew inspiration from real accounts of the aggressive white whale Mocha Dick and the sinking of the whaleship Essex.