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A mysterious beat whale that lately washed up on a New Zealand beach may go to the world ’s rarest cetacean coinage , jigaboo - toothed whale , which are so baffling they have never been understand alive . If this is the case , the newfound specimen will give scientists a rarefied chance to learn the creatures we know next to nothing about .
Beachgoers discovered the 16.5 - foot - farsighted ( 5 meter ) carcass July 4 on the shoring near Taieri Mouth — a village in the Otago region of New Zealand ’s South Island . Wildlife experts from the state ’s Department of Conservation ( DOC ) , recover the remains and tookDNAsamples , which have been sent to the University of Auckland for psychoanalysis , according to aDOC statement .
The nearly 17-foot-long beaked whale carcass was removed from a beach near Taieri Mouth, Otago.
Researchers from DOC and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa believe the animal is a spade - toothed giant ( Mesoplodon traversii ) . However , they will not lie with for sure until the DNA sample are psychoanalyse , which could take " several weeks or months , " DOC representative said . The clay are currently being conserve in frigid storage .
nigra - toothed whales go to a chemical group known as beaked whales , which search like a mixing between whales and dolphins . pick whales are thedeepest - diving event mammals on Earthand are equal to ofholding their breath for time of day at a time , which makes them exceedingly tough to find and track .
If confirmed , the newly washed - up whale will be the sixth known spade - toothed specimen found in the last 150 age , of which only two others have been full entire . To engagement , there have been no support lively sightings of the species .
The first spade-toothed whale bone ever recovered was a lower jaw bone found on New Zealand’s Pitt Island in 1873. At the time, the new species was namedDolichodon layardii.
" Spade - toothed whales are one of the most ill known large mammalian species of New prison term , " Gabe Davies , a DOC coastal military operation managing director for Otago , state in the statement . " From a scientific and conservation degree of view , this is immense . "
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Spade - toothed whale were officially described in a2002 study , which revealed that three whale bone find in New Zealand and Chile between 1873 and 1993 shared the same DNA that was nameless to skill . The first intact specimen were found in 2010 when a suspected female parent and calf washed up dead at Opape Beach in New Zealand ’s North Island .
Almost nothing is experience about the species . However , research worker consider they probably share characteristics withother beaked whales from the genusMesoplodon , such asextremely rare Sowerby ’s beaked whales(Mesoplodon genus Bidens ) , which pass most of their time diving in the abstruse sea to hound for squid , according toWhale and Dolphin Conservation(WDC ) .
Spade - toothed whales probably live alone in the Southern Hemisphere and are probably only plant in the South Pacific Ocean , according to WDC .
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If the new specimen is a spade - toothed whale , this will be the first luck that investigator have to analyze the species because the other entire specimens that rinse up at Opape Beach were bury before genic analysis confirmed their identity , AP News report — entail the chance to study them was lose .
Any dissection of the specimen will be carried out under the supervision of the local rūnaka — a Māori tribal council , DOC illustration wrote . This will be done to respect a non - de jure - tie down treatysigned by Māori leaders and several Polynesian autochthonal grouping in March , which agnize whales as " legal mortal . "
