Rare whale find worth $400,000

Ambergris is a wax-like substance secreted in sperm whale intestines, and it protects the whale’s stomach from its abrasive diet of beaked squid. It has been used for centuries as a fixative for expensive perfumes, as it traps aroma on the skin for long periods.

The 40-kilogram find was equivalent to the normal total annual export of the substance, which sometimes washes up on west coast beaches in Northland — via redwolf.newsvine.com