{"id":294281,"date":"2025-11-19T06:48:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T06:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/294281\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T06:48:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T06:48:12","slug":"for-the-first-time-a-ginkgo-toothed-beak-whale-has-been-seen-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/294281\/","title":{"rendered":"For The First Time, A Ginkgo-Toothed Beak Whale Has Been Seen Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the very first time, scientists have spotted a living ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, a rare, deep-diving<\/a> species that until this sighting had previously only been known from a handful of strandings.<\/p>\n

These elusive whales were only described for the first time in 1958<\/a>, after one became stranded on a beach near Tokyo. That ended up setting the tone for the next 66 years, with only a sparse number of sightings since then and all of them also involving dead whales. Researchers may have spotted a living ginkgo-toothed beaked whale in 2021<\/a> in the South China Sea, but it wasn\u2019t confirmed.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there was a mystery afoot in the North Pacific. Beaked whales are known to produce calls (the more formal term is echolocation pulses) unique to each species, and in this region of water, acoustic monitoring had picked up one known as BW43 \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t clear which species it belonged to.<\/p>\n

Some researchers thought it could be the call of Perrin\u2019s beaked whale, another species that had never been seen alive<\/a>. Following concentrated detections of BW43 in 2018 in Baja California, the first expedition in search of these whales set off in 2020.<\/p>\n

There were no sightings \u2013 and there weren\u2019t for the next three years\u2019 worth of surveys either. Scientists, however, are nothing if not persistent in the face of a mystery. In June 2024, with hydrophones and high-powered binoculars in tow, they set out on a fifth expedition to find the source of BW43.<\/p>\n

They struck gold, making six beaked whale sightings \u2013 none of which would turn out to be Perrin\u2019s beaked whale. Visuals and acoustic detections weren\u2019t enough to conclude that any were ginkgo-toothed beaked whales though; they can easily be mistaken for other beaked whale species.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where genetic analysis comes in, and that requires taking a sample of DNA. Seeing as you can\u2019t really ask a whale to spit into a tube, this ended up involving a modified crossbow to collect a skin biopsy from one of the sighted whales.<\/p>\n

The researchers did so successfully \u2013 until an albatross appeared and decided a hunk of whale skin would make a great snack. Luckily, the team was able to scare the bird away. \u201cIn hindsight, it is very funny, but in the moment it was very stressful,\u201d lead study author Elizabeth Henderson told The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Genetic analysis of the sample confirmed that this was indeed a gingko-toothed beaked whale. In fact, five of the six sightings were determined to involve the whales, with a mature adult male \u2013 covered in scars suspected to have been made by cookiecutter sharks<\/a> \u2013 a young adult male, adult female and calf, and juveniles all spotted.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An adult female gingko-toothed beaked whale swimming with a calf.<\/p>\n

Image credit: Henderson et al., Marine Mammal Science 2025 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Not only did this mean finally identifying the source of BW43, but also the first-ever sighting of a living gingko-toothed beaked whale.<\/p>\n

Like other beaked whales<\/a>, little is known about the species, but the sightings have provided fresh details. For example, the team was able to describe the color pattern of juvenile members of the species \u2013 something that had never been done before. \u201cAll had a slightly paler head and melon compared to the back, dark eye patches, and a pale eye spot in front of and slightly above the eye patch,\u201d write the authors in the study describing the sightings.<\/p>\n

The observations also appear to suggest that gingko-toothed beaked whales are \u201ca fairly widespread, if uncommon, resident off California and Baja California,\u201d the authors write, stating that these whales \u201coccur far more regularly in the eastern Pacific than previously assumed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now knowing the call of these elusive whales, it\u2019s hoped that this is just the beginning of uncovering the species\u2019 mysteries. \u201cWith this identification, we can begin to fill in more information on the behavior and distribution of the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale,\u201d the authors conclude.<\/p>\n

The study is published in Marine Mammal Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[H\/T: The Guardian<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the very first time, scientists have spotted a living ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, a rare, deep-diving species that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-294281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}