I wrote about this find (click here to read the original article) as one of just 7 of this species (spade-toothed beaked whale) to have washed ashore, it was too important an opportunity to find out something about this species in the wild.
Whales do eventually sink to the ocean floor, so it is quite difficult to know how many spade toothed whales there are left in the world (as we only encounter those which wash up on shore). They are thought to be very rare, but this is just conjecture. This is because, having been timed, holding breath for 87 minutes (and theorized that they might be able to last more than 2 hours), they would only have to surface perhaps 15 times in a 24 hour period. Furthermore, given their incredibly low profile in the water, they are likely capable of regularly coming to the surface without being particularly visible. It is true that they have been seen blowing spouts (the puff of moisture and air that signals a whales breath), but given their low profile, perhaps they are capable of exhaling in a less obvious way.
This one in question washed ashore in Otago, on South Island of New Zealand.
Van Helden, one of those taking part, was the lead author on the paper which gave the species its name, yet, they had had to work from bone and tissue samples often found decades apart, said that it was an incredible moment.
The first example of a spade-toothed whale was found in 1874, when it was described based on a lower jaw-bone and 2 teeth found on the Chatham Islands (off the east coast of South Island). DNA taken from 2 buried specimens in 2010, allowed scientists to describe it.
We deal with all 24 proposed beaked whales in one (click here to visit the page, many have little or no information on them). Beaked whales are perhaps more firmly protected from human behaviour than most, given how little they are encountered. Furthermore, given how rarely we see them, it is very hard to know how numerous they are in the wilds of the worlds oceans. Assuming that they come to the surface rapidly to breath, and sink back into the depths equally fast, we could imagine, that they are completely out of the way of humans more than 90% of the time.
Will we have a breakthrough on this species? who knows, though I for one, hope that we are not having a negative impact on the beaked whale family, otherwise they may die out before we have a chance to find out more.
