The World’s Rarest Whale May Have Just Washed Ashore in New Zealand

On July 4, what looked like a giant dolphin had washed ashore on a beach in Otago, New Zealand. But after a witness called the country’s Department of Conservation (DOC), experts realized that the 16.5-foot-long beaked mammal might be something much more unusual: a spade-toothed whale, the rarest whale species known to scientists.

There have never been any recorded live sightings of a spade-toothed whale. In the words of the Guardian’s Helen Sullivan, “it is the proverbial white whale of whale species.”

We know “practically nothing” about the creatures, Hannah Hendriks, marine technical adviser for the New Zealand DOC, tells Charlotte Graham-McLay of the Associated Press. “This is going to lead to some amazing science and world-first information.”

Spade-toothed whales were first described in 1874, after the discovery of a lower jaw and two teeth on Pitt Island, Rēkohu (also known as Chatham Islands), in New Zealand, according to a DOC statement. The mammals are named after the shape of their teeth, which resembles the spade-like blade historically used to cut blubber from whales, per the Guardian.

In the second half of the 20th century, two other sets of skeletal remains were found on New Zealand’s Whakāri Island (also known as White Island) and on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island. But it wasn’t until 2002 that DNA sequencing confirmed these three specimens belonged to the same species. Then, in 2010, a spade-toothed whale mother and calf washed ashore on another New Zealand beach near the Bay of Plenty. They were mistaken for common beaked whales, and only tissue samples were collected before the pair was buried. Seven years later, another stranding occurred in Gisborn, New Zealand, bringing the total number of known spade-toothed whale specimens to six.

It took “many years and a mammoth amount of effort by researchers and local people” to recognize the species, Kirsten Young, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter in England who has studied spade-toothed whales, tells the AP.

The massive creature discovered this month had washed ashore near the fishing town of Taieri Mouth. Patrick Gallagher, a resident of nearby Dunedin, spotted the beached whale while looking at a live stream of the shore earlier this month. He noticed an odd-looking object on the sand and figured it had to be a mammal.

“I almost didn’t call it in to DOC, because I thought they must’ve known about it, or it had been there for a while. I didn’t want to be annoying,” Gallagher tells RNZ’s Niva Chittock. “Pretty lucky that I actually put my big kid pants on and rang it in.”

The creature was removed by a local contractor and stored in a (giant) freezer. Per the Guardian, the local Indigenous community was on site during its removal to support the process and conduct Māori rites, including tying a harakeke, a woven rope, around its tail as a sign of respect and acknowledging Tangaroa, the god of the sea, in a ceremony.

Te Rūnanga ō Ōtakou chair Nadia Wesley-Smith tells the Guardian that Indigenous New Zealanders see whales as a culturally important “toanga,” or sacred treasure. Now, the DOC is working with Te Rūnanga ō Ōtākou to decide what happens next to the whale.

Samples of the specimen were sent to the University of Auckland’s Cetacean Tissue Archive to process the DNA. It could take months for the species to be identified, but if the cetacean is confirmed to be a spade-toothed whale, it would be the first complete specimen that could be dissected by experts. A dissection could teach scientists about the whale’s diet and habitat.

Anton van Helden, the science adviser at the DOC’s marine species team, is already positive about the animal’s identity as a spade-toothed whale: “There is no doubt that that is what it is,” he tells the Guardian.