It is the world’s rarest whale, with only seven of its kind ever spotted. Almost nothing is known about the enigmatic species, but on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of mystery.
“I can’t tell you how extraordinary it is,” said a joyful Anton van Helden, senior marine science adviser for New Zealand’s conservation agency, who gave the spade-toothed whale its name to distinguish it from other beaked species. “For me personally, it’s unbelievable.”
Van Helden has studied beaked whales for 35 years, but Monday was the first time he has participated in a dissection of the spade-toothed variety. In fact, the careful study of the creature — which washed up dead on a New Zealand beach in July — is the first ever to take place.
Photo: AP
None has ever been seen alive at sea.
The list of what scientists do not know about spade-toothed whales is longer than what they do know. They do not know where in the ocean the whales live, why they have never been spotted in the wild, or what their brains look like. All beaked whales have different stomach systems and researchers do not know how the spade-toothed processes its food. They do not know how this one died.
Over the next week, researchers studying the 5m-long male at an agricultural research center near the city of Dunedin hope to find out.
“There may be parasites completely new to science that just live in this whale,” said Van Helden, who thrilled at the chance of learning how the species produces sound and what it eats. “Who knows what we’ll discover?”
Only six other spade-toothed whales have ever been found, but all those discovered intact were buried before DNA testing could verify their identification.
New Zealand is a whale-stranding hot spot, with more than 5,000 episodes recorded since 1840, according to the New Zealand Department of Conservation.
The first spade-toothed whale bones were found in 1872 on New Zealand’s Pitt Island. Another discovery was made at an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island in 1986.
DNA sequencing in 2002 proved that all three specimens were of the same species — and that it was distinct from other beaked whales — but researchers studying the mammal could not confirm whether the species was extinct until 2010, when two whole spade-toothed whales, both dead, washed up on a New Zealand beach. However, none has been studied before.
The seventh of its kind, surrounded by white-aproned scientists who were measuring and photographing, on Monday appeared relatively unblemished, giving no clue about its death. Researchers pointed out marks from cookiecutter sharks — normal, they said, and not the cause.
The dissection would be quiet, methodical and slower than usual, because it is being undertaken in partnership with the Maori. To the Maori, whales are a taonga — a precious treasure — and the creature would be treated with the reverence afforded to an ancestor.
Members of the local iwi, or Maori people, would be present throughout the dissection and consulted at each turn, allowing them to share traditional knowledge and observe customs, such as saying a karakia (prayer) over the creature before the study begins.
“According to our beliefs and our traditions, this whale is a gift of Tangaroa, deity of the ocean,” Tumai Cassidy said. “It’s very important for us to respect that gift and to honor the whale.”
The iwi are to keep the jawbone and teeth of the whale at the end of the dissection, before its skeleton is displayed in a museum. 3D printing would be used to replicate those parts, using a CT scan taken of the whale’s head this week.
“It all builds a richer picture for that species, but also tells us how it interacts with our oceans,” Cassidy said.
It is thought that spade-toothed whales live in the vast Southern Pacific Ocean, home to some of the world’s deepest ocean trenches. Beaked whales are the ocean’s deepest divers for food, and the spade-toothed might rarely surface, adding to its mystery.
The assembled scientists on Monday included a few who had traveled from abroad to see the whale, which was put in refrigerated storage after its discovery.
“What we are interested in is not only how these animals died, but how they lived,” said Joy Reidenberg, a comparative anatomist from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “In discovering how they live, we are hoping to find discoveries that we can apply back to the human condition.”
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
RSS