Spade-toothed whales are the world’s rarest, with no live sightings ever recorded. No one knows how many there are, what they eat, or even where they live in the vast expanse of the southern Pacific Ocean.
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    4 months ago

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    The country’s conservation agency said Monday a creature that washed up on a South Island beach this month is believed to be a spade-toothed whale.

    Only six other spade-toothed whales have ever been pinpointed, and those found intact on New Zealand’s North Island beaches were buried before DNA testing could verify their identification, Hendriks said, thwarting any chance to study them.

    This time, the beached whale was quickly transported to cold storage and researchers will work with local Māori iwi (tribes) to plan how it will be examined, the conservation agency said.

    In April, Pacific Indigenous leaders signed a treaty recognizing whales as “legal persons,” although such a declaration is not reflected in the laws of participating nations.

    It took “many years and a mammoth amount of effort by researchers and local people” to identify the “incredibly cryptic” mammals, Kirsten Young, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter who has studied spade-toothed whales, said in emailed remarks.

    Firstly mistaken for one of New Zealand’s 13 other more common types of beaked whale, tissue samples — taken before they were buried — later revealed them as the enigmatic species.

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