(Christchurch) The body of a Travers’ beaked whale – a rare species never seen and found alive – appears to have washed up on a New Zealand beach, scientists say.
Remains of the five-metre-long whale were found on July 4 near the mouth of a river in the Otago region, located in the southeast of the South Island, researchers said.
Marine mammal experts from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and Te Papa National Museum identified it as a male whale.
“These whales are one of the most misunderstood large mammal species in modern times,” said Gabe Davies, the Department of Conservation’s Otago Coast operations manager. “Since the 1800s, only six specimens have been documented anywhere in the world, and only one was not from New Zealand,” Davies said in a statement Monday.
“The discovery was recent enough to provide the first opportunity to dissect a Travers’ beaked whale,” the Department of Conservation said, stressing that the species is “so rare that virtually nothing is known about it,” it added.
PHOTO NEW ZEALAND DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION, ARCHIVES PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The whale’s body is in cold storage and samples of its DNA have been sent to the University of Auckland for analysis and to confirm its identification, which could take months or weeks.
“The rarity of this whale means that conversations about what to do next will take longer, as this is a conversation of international importance,” the ministry said.
The species was first described in 1874 from a lower jaw and two teeth collected from the Chatham Islands, off the east coast of New Zealand.
This sample, along with the remains of two other specimens found in New Zealand and Chile, allowed scientists to confirm the existence of this species. But due to the rarity of specimens discovered and the lack of observations of living specimens, little is known about this species.
The first intact specimen came from a mother and calf stranded in the Bay of Plenty in 2010, New Zealand’s Department of Conservation said, while the second was in 2017 in Gisborne, in the eastern part of the North Island.