{"id":427266,"date":"2024-12-02T23:05:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T23:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=427266"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"New-Zealand-scientists-dissect-world-s-rarest-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/New-Zealand-scientists-dissect-world-s-rarest-whale\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand scientists dissect world&#8217;s rarest whale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand scientists on Monday began dissecting a whale considered the rarest in the world, a species so elusive that only seven specimens have ever been documented.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The dead spade-toothed whale washed ashore on New Zealand&#8217;s South Island earlier this year, offering a chance to study a deep-sea mammal that has never been seen alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Measuring five metres (16.4 feet) long, the whale was winched off the beach in July and has sat in a special freezer since.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whale expert Anton van Helden said it was the first time scientists had been able to dissect a complete spade-toothed specimen, which belongs to the family of beaked whales.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a remarkable and globally significant opportunity,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The week-long dissection will help to fill in gaps about the whale&#8217;s behaviour, its diet, and even its basic anatomy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Beaked whales are the most enigmatic group of large mammals on the planet,&#8221; said Van Helden.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are deep divers that are rarely seen at sea, which presents real challenges for researching these marine animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This one is the rarest of the rare &#8212; only the seventh specimen known from anywhere in the world, and the first opportunity we have had to undertake a dissection like this.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand&#8217;s conservation department said the spade-toothed whale was the &#8220;rarest whale in the world&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The species was first described in 1874 from just a lower jaw and two teeth collected from the Chatham Islands off the east coast of New Zealand.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That sample, along with skeletal remains of two other specimens found in New Zealand and Chile, enabled scientists to confirm a new species.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Because so few specimens have been found and there have been no live sightings, the spade-toothed whale is classified as &#8220;data deficient&#8221; under the New Zealand Threat Classification System.<\/p>\n<p>sft\/djw\/rsc<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/288846f82f2cfa5c9818f9cdf560a222.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>The spade-toothed whale pictured on July 5 by the New Zealand Department of Conservation<\/p>\n<p>-New Zealand Department of Conservation<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand scientists on Monday began dissecting a whale considered the rarest in the world,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}