It is the rarest whale in the world, of which only seven specimens of its species have been sighted. Almost nothing is known about this enigmatic species, but on Monday a small group of New Zealand scientists and cultural experts gathered around a nearly perfectly preserved toothed spade whale in hopes of unraveling decades of mystery.
“I can’t explain to you how extraordinary it is.”said cheerfully Anton van Helden, senior marine science adviser to New Zealand’s conservation agency, who gave the spadetooth whale its name to distinguish it from other beaked species. “For me personally, it’s amazing.”
Van Helden has studied beaked whales for 35 years, but Monday was the first time he participated in a dissection of the spade-toothed variety. In fact, the detailed study of the creature, which was found dead on a New Zealand beach in July, is the first to be carried out so far.
None have been seen alive at sea.
The list of what scientists don’t know about toothed whales is longer than what they do know. They don’t know where in the ocean they live, why they’ve never been seen in the wild, or what their brain is like.. All beaked whales have different stomach systems, and researchers don’t know how toothed whales process their food. They don’t know how this one died.
Over the next week, researchers studying the 16-foot-long (5-meter) male at an agricultural research center near the city of Dunedin hope to discover it.
“There may be parasites completely new to science living on this whale,” said van Helden, who was excited at the prospect of learning how the species produces sound and what it eats. “Who knows what we will discover?”
Only six other spadetooth whales have been found, but all of those that were discovered intact were buried before DNA testing could verify their identification.
New Zealand is a hotspot for whale strandings, with more than 5,000 cases recorded since 1840, according to the Department of Conservation. The first spade-toothed whale bones were found in 1872 on New Zealand’s Pitt Island.. Another discovery was made on an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island in 1986.
DNA sequencing carried out in 2002 showed that the three specimens belonged to the same species and that they were different from other beaked whales. But researchers studying this mammal couldn’t confirm whether the species was extinct until 2010, when two entire spadetooth whales, both dead, washed up on a New Zealand beach. But none of them had been studied before.
On Monday, the seventh specimen of its species, surrounded by scientists in white aprons who were measuring and photographing it, appeared relatively intact and gave no clue to its death. The researchers pointed out cookie-cutter shark marks, something normal, they said, and not the cause.
The dissection will be quiet, methodical and slower than usual, because it is being carried out in collaboration with the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. For Māori, whales are taonga (a prized treasure) and the creature will be treated with the same reverence given to an ancestor.
Members of the local iwi or tribe will be present throughout the dissection and will be consulted at each shift, allowing them to share traditional knowledge and observe customs, such as saying a karakia (a prayer) over the creature before the study begins.
“According to our beliefs and traditions, this whale is a gift from Tangaroa, the deity of the ocean,” said Tumai Cassidy, from the local Te Rūnanga Ōtākou village. “For us it is very important to respect that gift and honor the whale.”
The iwi will preserve the whale’s jaw and teeth at the end of the dissection, before its skeleton is displayed in a museum. 3D printing will be used to replicate those parts, using a CT scan taken of the whale’s head this week.
“All of this creates a more complete picture of that species, but also tells us how it interacts with our oceans,” Cassidy said.
Spadetooth whales are believed to live in the vast South Pacific Oceanwhere some of the deepest ocean trenches in the world are located. Beaked whales feed deeper in the ocean and rarely come to the surface, adding to the mystery.
Among the scientists gathered on Monday were some who had traveled from abroad to see the whale, which was stored in a refrigerated location after its discovery.
“We’re not just interested in how these animals died, but how they lived,” said Joy Reidenberg, a comparative anatomist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “By discovering how they live, we hope to find discoveries that we can apply to the human condition.”
(with information from AP)
