New Species of Beaked Whale

Marine biologists working with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society believe that they have discovered a previously unknown species of beaked whale in the waters north of Mexico’s San Benito Islands.

Possibly a new species of beaked whale. Image credit: Simon Ager / Sea Shepherd.

Possibly a new species of beaked whale. Image credit: Simon Ager / Sea Shepherd.

A team of researchers on board Sea Shepherd vessel Martin Sheen aimed to study the cetaceans present in the waters surrounding San Benito Islands, a group of three remote islands located approximately 483 km (300 miles) from the U.S. border.

The scientists set forth to identify a beaked whale species associated with an unidentified acoustic signal previously recorded in the area.

On November 17, 2020, they observed three beaked whales about 161 km (100 miles) north of San Benito Islands.

They captured photographs and video recordings of the animals and deployed a specialized underwater microphone to record the acoustic signals emitted by the whales.

Their initial analysis indicates the physical characteristics of the sighted whales do not match Perrin’s or any other known species of beaked whale.

“We are highly confident that the photographic and acoustic evidence reveals the presence of an entirely new whale species,” they said.

 

Environmental genetic sampling, performed at the time of the sighting, is undergoing analysis and is expected to prove the existence of this new species definitively.

“We saw something new,” said team member Professor Jay Barlow, a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

“Something that was not expected in this area, something that doesn’t match, either visually or acoustically, anything that is known to exist.”

“It just sends chills up and down my spine when I think that we might have accomplished what most people would say was truly impossible — finding a large mammal that exists on this earth that is totally unknown to science.”

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This article is based on text provided by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

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