Spade-Toothed Rarest Whale Spotted for First Time in New Zealand

The world's rarest whale species, the spade-toothed whale, has been spotted for the first time in New Zealand seas.

Initially identified as the Gray's beaked whales, the two, a mother and male calf, were washed ashore in December 2010, on Opape Beach, New Zealand. 

Their true identity as spade-toothed beaked whales rolled out following DNA analysis, which is done routinely as part of a 20-year program, to collect data on the 13 species of beaked whales found in New Zealand waters.

According to the researchers, the discovery is the first evidence that this whale is still with us and reminds us of how little we know about life in the ocean. The findings also highlight the importance of DNA typing and reference collections for the identification of rare species.

"This is the first time this species -- a whale over five meters in length -- has ever been seen as a complete specimen, and we were lucky enough to find two of them," says Rochelle Constantine of the University of Auckland. "Up until now, all we have known about the spade-toothed beaked whale was from three partial skulls collected from New Zealand and Chile over a 140-year period. It is remarkable that we know almost nothing about such a large mammal."

Before this study scientists were unsure whether the species sill existed.

"When these specimens came to our lab, we extracted the DNA as we usually do for samples like these, and we were very surprised to find that they were spade-toothed beaked whales," Constantine says. "We ran the samples a few times to make sure before we told everyone."

"It may be that they are simply an offshore species that lives and dies in the deep ocean waters and only rarely wash ashore," Constantine says. "New Zealand is surrounded by massive oceans. There is a lot of marine life that remains unknown to us."

A report in the November 6th issue of Current Biology offers the first complete description of spade toothed beaked whale Mesoplodon traversii, a species previously known only from a few bones.