A carcass found washed up on a beach in New Zealand may be that of the world’s rarest whale, scientists have said. Spade-toothed whales are a type of beaked whale named for their teeth resembling the spade-like “flensing” blade once used to strip whales of their blubber. Knowledge of their existence is mostly based on a series of bones and tissue discovered decades apart and later sequenced, showing a new, shared DNA.
But scientists in New Zealand believe that a whole specimen may just have been found in Taieri Mouth, Otago. It is the proverbial white whale of whale species, and it looks a lot like a very big dolphin.
