The First Look Inside a Whale Never Seen Alive

A 5-meter male washed ashore on New Zealand's South Island on July 4, 2024. Conservation staff arrived expecting a routine beaching. The animal turned out to be a spade-toothed whale, Mesoplodon traversii, a species officials on the scene called one of the least understood large mammals alive today.

That is not an exaggeration. The spade-toothed whale is the rarest whale on record, with only seven confirmed specimens since it was first documented in the 1800s, and no one has ever seen one alive. Every earlier specimen arrived already decomposed. This one was in good condition, making a complete dissection possible for the first time in the species' recorded history.

The dissection turned up tiny vestigial teeth buried in the gums, roughly equivalent to human wisdom teeth, and nine stomach chambers. Nine. For context, cows manage four and are considered overachievers. Inside those chambers, researchers found squid beaks and lens fragments, early clues to what the whale ate and possibly how it communicated. Researchers said the tiny embedded teeth offer a window into the species' evolutionary history. The week-long examination was carried out jointly by Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, the Department of Conservation, Otago Museum, and the University of Otago, marking the first time Indigenous and Western knowledge systems were formally combined to study this species.

Researchers on the team said the dissection turned up a steady stream of new findings, with more expected as analysis continues.

A whale that has never been seen breathing was finally studied through the one door it left open: the single time it failed to disappear.

Read the full story at IFLScience, December 16, 2024

Hot Take: Science has formally described roughly 9 million species on this planet. Yet every "final frontier" story eventually runs into the same problem: Earth still has plenty of places where the unknown dwells.