The species is “so rare that virtually nothing is known about it,” New Zealand’s Department of Conservation said. Never seen at sea and never found alive, it could this time yield some secrets.
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She is considered as “the rarest whale in the world”. On July 4, the body of a Travers’ beaked whale washed up on the coast of New Zealand, in the Otago province in the south of the country. Marine mammal experts identified it as a male. To date, only six specimens have been documented in the world, all animals found dead washed up on beaches. The discovery has caused a lot of talk because being rather recent, the remains of the animal will be able to be studied. Samples of its DNA have also been sent to the University of Auckland to be analyzed. Franceinfo presents three things to know about this whale.
1 This is only the third intact whale of this species to be found.
There were descriptions made in 1974 from a lower jaw and two teeth collected from the Chatham Islands, off the east coast of New Zealand, but only three intact specimens have been found. The first of these comes from a mother and calf stranded in the Bay of Plenty in 2010, the New Zealand Department of Conservation said, while the second dates back to 2017 in Gisborne, east of the North Island. If this species is said to be rare, it is notably because“There has never been a confirmed sighting at sea. It is a whale that is only known from strandings”explains to franceinfo Olivier Van Canneyt, coordinator of observation devices at the Pélagis Observatory, specializing in the observation of marine mammals and birds.
“In general, beaked whales are a relatively little-known family of cetaceans. Paradoxically, it is one of the families of cetaceans that includes the greatest number of species since there are more than twenty species within this group, but many of them are species that live in remote areas, very offshore, in oceanic zones, explains the scientist. And when it comes to the Southern Hemisphere and the South Pacific, of course it’s even further away than the beaked whales that live in the Atlantic Ocean where strandings are already more likely.”
The probability of coming across this species is all the lower as“in these areas there is not much observation at sea, these are areas which are not very busy”adds Olivier Van Canneyt.
2 She can spend three hours holding her breath underwater.
These are species “very discreet”confirms the researcher. “These are animals that can dive for a very long time, very deep.”he specifies. “They are great divers, so animals that descend to several thousand meters deep, the record is not far from 3,000 meters deep.”
“These whales spend three hours holding their breath and then a few dozen minutes on the surface.”which reinforces the low probability of coming across one of them, insists the specialist. “So for all these reasons: great divers, open ocean area, South Pacific, animal populations which are also probably not very dense, this generally makes them rare species,” concludes Olivier Van Canneyt.
3 This is the first time that such a species could be dissected.
“The discovery was recent enough to provide the first opportunity to dissect a Travers’ beaked whale.”the New Zealand Department of Conservation said. The whale’s body is currently 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, because this is a conversation of international importance.”the ministry said.
To our colleagues at Release, Jean-Luc Jung, professor at the National Museum of Natural History, explains that the study of this animal “vto better identify the criteria of this species: its DNA, its morphology and its anatomy. We have known the anatomy of the bones of these whales since 2010, but we do not know its soft parts at all [tout ce qui n’est ni osseux ni interne, comme la peau ou les muscles] and his body”explains the scientist.
Dissecting this whale could also teach us the causes of its death, but also provide more information on its way of life, believes the professor, recalling in passing that “We are very close cousins of cetaceans.” And to conclude: “What affects them affects us, or will affect us, for sure.”