It might sound strange, but whale earwax is a scientific goldmine. Much like the rings of a tree, earwax builds up in layers over a whale’s lifetime, forming long, waxy plugs that can grow over a foot in length. These “earplugs” help scientists determine a whale’s age, but they reveal even more than that.
Each layer captures chemical traces of the ocean environment, showing what pollutants the whale was exposed to, how stress levels changed over time, and even what kinds of hormones were active in different stages of life. In essence, a whale’s earwax is a biological time capsule, storing secrets of the sea that no other sample can.