Moby Dick Supports an Ethological Model of Social Behavior, Socio-Cognition and Social Communication: Do von Economo-like Neurons Play a Role?

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or The White Whale is a literary classic and historical account of 19th-century American whaling. Depictions of New Bedford, Nantucket, and life aboard the Pequod capture the whaling industry. Readers experience the whale hunt from sighting atop the ship’s masts with shouts of “Thar she blows!” to excision of blubber and extraction of oil. Relationships are described, such as Ishmael, the novel’s narrator, and Queequeg, a Pacific Islander harpooner reared as a prince among idolatrous cannibals. Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal pursuit of Moby Dick, his hated nemesis, is the book’s major plot. The novel’s story is interrupted with descriptions of Sperm Whale anatomy and scattered observations of its behavior. Sperm Whales are social mammals, possessing the largest brain of all mammalian species, and capable of complex socio-cognitive computations and social communication. Sperm Whales use socially learned vocalization codas to “identify” matrilineally-defined social groups and “non-identity codas” to communicate between different social units sharing overlapping ocean habitats. Interestingly, Sperm Whales possess neurons morphologically similar to von Economo neurons (VENs) found in humans and other hominids. In higher primates, VENs support social behavior, higher socio-cognitive functions, and social communication. Thus, questions arise as to whether these morphologically similar “von Economo-like” neurons in Sperm Whales represent convergent evolution supporting complex socio-cognitive computations and social communication. In summary, Sperm Whales are an ethological model of social behavior, socio-cognitive functioning and social communication with translational relevance for man.