Fortune in vomit

A lucky Australian couple struck gross gold when they found a pricey pile of whale sick on the beach. Leon and Loralee Wright were curious about a weird waxy stone they found in Streaky Bay, South Australia. So a marine expert identified it for them as a 14.75kg lump of ambergris, which is used to make perfumes, after it’s been vomited up by sperm whales. It sounds gross, but the sweet-smelling sick is worth £11 a gram, meaning the Wright’s find could earn them as much as £165,300! Sperm whales make ambergris in their stomachs to help them the digest food, but eventually throw it up.