“A really stocky, strong-looking little animal:” Scientists gain valuable clues about the world’s rarest whale

CNN
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Anton van Helden, an expert on some of the world’s rarest whales, was sitting on the couch recovering from surgery in July when a photo flashed on his phone that would change the course of his career.

But this was no ordinary whale.

“I immediately thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s a spade-toothed whale!'” the senior marine science advisor for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) told CNN.

“A lot of people didn’t believe me,” he added.

The spade-toothed whale is the rarest whale in the world, with only seven of its species ever recorded. It has never been seen alive at sea.

When the near-mythical creature washed ashore mostly intact in July, many thought it was too good to be true.

Some of the world’s top whale researchers, along with members of the local Māori community in New Zealand, met last week to dissect the 16-foot-long, 3,000-pound mammal – the first time anyone has ever seen a shoveled-toothed whale from the inside.

According to DOC, the spade-toothed whale is a member of the family of beaked whales, so named because of their “dolphin-like” snouts.

They are a diverse and elusive group of mammals that spend much of their lives in the depths of the ocean. One of them, the goose-beaked whale, holds the world record for the longest (three hours and 42 minutes) and deepest (nearly three kilometers or 1.86 miles) dive by a whale.

The first evidence of the spade-toothed whale’s existence dates back to 1874, when mandible and tooth samples were collected on Pitt Island, around 500 miles off the west coast of New Zealand. Two additional partial skulls, one in New Zealand and one in Chile, later allowed scientists to confirm a brand new species.

The first time anyone saw the whale in the flesh was in 2010, when a mother and calf became stranded in the Bay of Plenty on New Zealand’s North Island, but the carcasses were unsuitable for dissection.

A stranding in 2017 in Gisborne, also on New Zealand’s North Island, added another specimen to the collection.

The spade-toothed whale is so enigmatic that even those like van Helden, who have spent their entire careers studying this family of whales, have more questions about the deep-sea diver than answers.

“These are extreme animals. These are animals that dive to great depths, so they have all sorts of adaptations, if you will, to this extraordinary environment.”

When a spadetooth whale washed up at the mouth of the Taiari River in New Zealand in July, Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, the local tribal authority where the whale had stranded, recognized what a groundbreaking opportunity it was to learn about a rare species.

They immediately placed the specimen in a freezer so it could be dissected later, Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou cultural advisor Tumai Cassidy told CNN.

“Especially for our tribe, whales are highly revered animals,” Cassidy said. “They are shown a lot of respect when they wash up.”

Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou named the whale Ōnumia, after the traditional name of the area where the whale was stranded.

Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou led the section in collaboration with the DOC, an arrangement that facilitates the exchange of scientific and cultural knowledge.

“For our people, we are really open and want collaboration, collaboration and partnerships,” Cassidy said, adding that at the end of the day everyone has a “shared responsibility” to protect the animals on this earth.

“We all approach this with our own stories and backgrounds,” van Helden said, calling the section a “rich, holistic process.”

The scientists worked through the animal, starting with external measurements, weighing its blubber and cutting it to identify different muscles.

When CNN spoke with van Helden, the team was in the process of removing the whale’s head, which they would later subject to a CT scan.

With every cut and twist of the whale carcass, more clues emerge.

Van Helden is particularly interested in learning how the whale produces sounds since it spends so much time deep in the sea and away from the air.

When asked what surprised him about seeing the mammal up close for the first time, van Helden replied that the spade-toothed whale was smaller and stockier than other beaked whales.

“It’s really sturdy. It’s a really stocky, strong-looking little animal.”

“Compared to other whales,” he quickly clarified with a laugh. “Obviously it’s huge.”