There is a new whale in the ocean, Japanese scientists are reporting in the journal Nature.
Using analysis of bone structure and DNA, three researchers reported that some puzzling whales, first noticed by scientists in the late 1970s when Japanese whalers killed eight of them, represent a new species in a group of whales that have long been a subject of taxonomic confusion. They call the new whale Balaenoptera omurai.
The three scientists said the whales differed from other species in a jawbone, DNA and baleen -- the plates that hang from the upper jaw and are used to filter krill, plankton and other small creatures from sea water.
PHOTO: AFP
Other scientists are not so sure. Howard Rosenbaum, a conservation biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the Japanese researchers had done "an admirable job to at least open the question as whether this is a distinct species," but added that more DNA analysis needed to be done.
Dale Rice, a retired wildlife research biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said he recalled that when the original whales were taken, "nobody knew quite what they were." Without study of the bones and DNA, he said, they would be hard to tell from similar whales, since "they look pretty much alike."
The Japanese researchers -- Shiro Wada of Japan's National Research Institute of Fisheries Science; Masayuki Oishi of the Iwata Prefectural Museum; and Tadasu Yamada of the National Science Museum -- used samples taken more than 20 years ago from the eight whales killed in the 1970s, and tissue and bones from a whale carcass found on an island in the Sea of Japan in 1998.
The whales belong to a group called the rorqual whales, or balaenoptera, which includes the blue whale, fin whale, sei and minke whales. These whales were thought to be similar to Bryde's whale or the smaller similar whale sometimes called Eden's whale.
In their analysis the researchers said they found enough differences to name a new species, and to show that Eden's whale was a separate species as well.
This sifting of DNA and re-examination of old specimens is often the way new species are named now. Last year, for example, a new species of beaked whale, Mesoplodon perrini, was named (or discovered, depending on one's point of view) through a DNA analysis of animals that had washed ashore near San Diego in the mid-1970s.
In 2000, Rosenbaum and colleagues separated a third species of right whale from two others with DNA analysis, and resurrected an earlier species name that had fallen out of use, Eubalaena japonica.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS