Creature washed up on New Zealand beach could be world’s rarest whale: spade-toothed whale

Wellington, New Zealand — Spade-toothed whales are the rarest in the world. They have never been seen alive. No one knows how many there are, what they eat, or even where they live in the vast expanse of the southern Pacific Ocean. But scientists in New Zealand may have finally found a solution.

The country’s conservation agency said Monday that a creature that washed up on a South Island beach this month is believed to be a spade-toothed whale. The five-metre-long creature, a type of beaked whale, was identified after washing up on the Otago beach by its colour patterns and the shape of its skull, beak and teeth.

“We know very little, if anything” about these creatures, Hannah Hendriks, a marine technical adviser at the Department of Conservation, told The Associated Press. “This is going to lead to amazing scientific discoveries and information that’s never been seen before in the world.”

If the cetacean is confirmed as the elusive spade-toothed whale, it would be the first specimen discovered in a state that would allow scientists to dissect it, allowing them to map the whale’s relationship to the few others of the species found and learn what it eats and perhaps find clues about where it lives.

Only six other spade-toothed whales have been identified, and those found intact on beaches on New Zealand’s North Island were buried before DNA tests could verify their identification, Hendriks said, thwarting any chance of studying them.

This time, the stranded whale was quickly transported to cold storage and researchers will work with local Maori iwi (tribes) to plan how it will be examined, the conservation agency said.

New Zealand’s indigenous peoples regard whales as a culturally significant taonga (sacred treasure). In April, Pacific indigenous leaders signed a treaty recognising whales as “legal persons”, although such a declaration is not reflected in the laws of the participating nations.

Nothing is currently known about the whales’ habitat. The creatures dive deep to feed and probably surface so rarely that it has been impossible to pinpoint their location beyond the southern Pacific Ocean, home to some of the world’s deepest ocean trenches, Hendriks said.

“It’s very difficult to do research on marine mammals if you don’t see them at sea,” she said. “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. You don’t know where to look.”

The conservation agency said genetic testing to confirm the whale’s identification could take months.

It took “many years and a colossal effort by researchers and local people” to identify these “incredibly cryptic” mammals, Kirsten Young, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter who has studied spade-toothed whales, said in an email.

This new discovery “makes me think: How many fish live in the deep ocean and how do they live?” Young said.

The first beaked whale bones were discovered in 1872 on Pitt Island in New Zealand. Another was found on an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were discovered on Robinson Crusoe Island in Chile in 1986. DNA sequencing in 2002 proved that all three specimens belonged to the same species – and that each was a distinct beaked whale.

Researchers studying the mammal couldn’t confirm whether the species was extinct. Then, in 2010, two entire beaked whales, both dead, washed up on a New Zealand beach. Initially mistaken for one of New Zealand’s 13 other common beaked whale species, tissue samples taken after they were buried revealed that they were the enigmatic species.

New Zealand is a popular destination for stranded whales, with more than 5,000 recorded incidents since 1840, according to the Department of Conservation.