World's rarest whale seen (dead)

[Silver_Knight]

The world's rarest whale has been spotted for the first time, in New Zealand, where two of the whales stranded themselves.
The two spade-toothed beaked whales, a mother and calf, stranded and died on Opape Beach on the North Island of New Zealand, in December 2010. The mother was 17 feet (5.3 meters) long and the calf was 11 feet (3.5 m) long.
A report describing the whales and the analysis of their DNA appears in the Nov. 6 issue of the journal Current Biology.
"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," Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, said in a statement. "This is the first time this species has ever been seen as a complete specimen, and we were lucky enough to find two of them."
At first, the animals were thought to be much more common Gray's beaked whales. Their identity came to light following routine DNA analysis, which was done as part of a 20-year program to collect data on beaked whale species in New Zealand waters. New Zealand is a known hotspot for whale stranding, and it has the highest rates and greatest diversities of stranded whale species in the world, the researchers report.
The New Zealand Department of Conservation photographed the animals and collected tissue samples.
"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 said. "We ran the samples a few times to make sure before we told everyone."
The researchers said they have no idea why the whales have remained so elusive.
"It may be that they are simply an offshore species that lives and dies in the deep ocean waters and only rarely wash[es] ashore," Constantine said.

[-Kwesnoth-]

Kinda strange that the only two ever seen were both washed on shore dead.

Leaves me wondering what other monster lurk in the deep of the ocean.

[DeviousOne]

Looks like dolphins had something to do with this!!!

[F34R]

Kinda strange that the only two ever seen were both washed on shore dead.

Leaves me wondering what other monster lurk in the deep of the ocean.

Nessi /thread

Looks like dolphins had something to do with this!!!

ROFL. Their abilities are becoming more and more transparent.

[Silver_Knight]

Kinda strange that the only two ever seen were both washed on shore dead.

Leaves me wondering what other monster lurk in the deep of the ocean.

It just goes to show how little we know about the ocean or world for that matter.

@Devious a secret dolphin underworld.

[Kuro]

Lmao D.
Interesting though makes you wonder..

[DeviousOne]

Lmao D.
Interesting though makes you wonder..

Precisely makes u wonder if they raped the whales before they murdered them smh lmao

[DarkVincent07]

That's kind of depressing :/

[Fon]

If this is true then more of these Whales should still be alive somewhere. Let's not jump on the Dolphins rape conspiracy here.

[Bio]

When I saw dead in parentheses I sort of died inside.

This is still really cool. Just when you think we've pretty much covered everything in this world, it's fascinating when you find out there is still so many things out there we still know little to nothing about.

[claud3]

It's the way life is, it's beautiful one minute and then dark the next.

This will not be the last rarest thing to die anytime soon

[Cybertox]

Never saw such a whale. Its interesting how many rare animals there are. They are very rare and they drop on the shore, what an irony.

[keefy]

ITs even more rare now.

[THUGGEDOUT]

Precisely makes u wonder if they raped the whales before they murdered them smh lmao

If this is the case, then we should prolly start sentencing killers, molesters, etc, to the dolphin tank at Sea World, I'd definitely pay to see that shit.

[DeviousOne]

If this is the case, then we should prolly start sentencing killers, molesters, etc, to the dolphin tank at Sea World, I'd definitely pay to see that shit.

Dolphin justice! Lol

[claud3]

An peaceful creature gone. Why does it happen and this is not an act of God

It's an act of cruelty