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Researchers from the US believe they have found a previously unknown species of the beaked whale group in the waters of Mexico.
A new species of beaked whale may have been discovered outside of Mexico. The beaked whale in the picture was photographed outside of Germany. Stock Photography.
It was when a group of scientists followed a shy species of beaked whale in the Pacific Ocean, west of the Baja California peninsula, that they discovered three unusual whales.
– It was an exceptional meeting. It’s very unusual to see even a beaked whale and then come across an entire group is even more unusual, says Jay Barlow, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, USA.
He and his colleagues didn’t realize they had found a potentially new species until they returned to the mainland and examined the photos they had taken and then saw that the whales’ teeth were in unusual places.
Suspicions about the discovery were later reinforced by sound recordings of whale sounds, which are described as unique. The researchers are now awaiting answers from analyzes of the water the whales swam in and that it may have contained traces of the whales’ DNA.
Barlow is, as he puts it, cautiously optimistic about the test results. If the new species is confirmed to be completely new to humans, it will be the 24th known species of beaked whale, according to the Reuters news agency.
– It is a large animal, it weighs like a horse. Think that something so great on our earth may have remained undiscovered. There are many mysteries under the surface of the sea, he says.
Beaked whales belong to the toothed whale family and can be between four and thirteen meters long. They belong to the lesser-known whales, much because they tend to dive in deep waters, up to 3,000 meters, to access fish and octopuses.
