Sunday, January 6, 2013

The Rare Spade-Tooth Whale Has Been Sighted

The Spade-Tooth whale has never been seen alive, until now. A mother and her calf washed up on a beach in New Zealand  This creature is little known to the scientific community, and we only knew about its existence from a few bones. The whales were originally identified as Gray’s beaked whales and they were discovered in 2010. But recently they have been re-evaluated as Spade-Toothed. This raises questions like: what if we misidentified Gray’s beaked whales before when they were really Spade-Tooth? Scientists think it’s an offshore species and that’s why we've never seen it.

http://www.macroevolution.net/mesoplodon-traversii.html

1 comment:

  1. I think it is so incredible how after so many years of exploring the oceans there is still new species of animals arising. Especially this one because whales are big usually easy to spot.I wonder how many other species that are undiscovered will arising in my life time. We all know that the ocean is a majestical place fulled of wonders waiting to be discovered.

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