When three beaked whales appeared off the Pacific Coast of Mexico, researchers thought they had discovered the elusive Perrin's beaked whale, also known as Mesoplodon perrini, an endangered species that has reportedly never been officially seen alive.
However, upon closer look, the scientists realized they might have tripped upon something that was even rarer, "a new species of beaked whales altogether."
An EcoWatch article indicated that last month, the team of researchers sailed aboard the Martin Sheen, a vessel which Sea Shepherd, a conservation group is operating when they spotted three beaked whales around 160 kilometers of the San Benito Islands of Mexico.
The team managed to capture pictures and video recordings of the whales, and they were able to drop a specialized microphone too, underwater, to record the acoustic sounds of the animals.
Slightly Different Echolocation Clicks
In an interview with Mongobay, bioacoustics scientist Elizabeth Henderson from the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific or NIWC PAC's whale acoustics reconnaissance program said, the whales amazingly appeared four to five times close to the ship where they were.
Henderson, also one of the study authors on an expedition at that time added, the whales seemed to be circling them.
They put in one of their acoustic recorders, she continued, and the animals "kind of checked that out." For beaked whales, she explained, it was incredible as they are usually so elusive when it comes to ships.
Beaked whales communicate through echolocation clicks above the human hearing's frequency. However, when Henderson and her team examined the acoustical data, they discover these clicks of the whales were slightly different from the clicks which Perrin's beaked whales produce.
Unique Physical Characteristics
The said report said the trio of whales surfaced to have unique physical characteristics. The bioacoustics scientist explained that a Perrin's beaked whale has teeth "right at the end of the jaw."
Therefore, when they began to look at the images they captured, the researchers realized the teeth of the beaked whales they spotted are further back, concluding, "they could not be Perrin's."
Then, when the team began to look at other physical characteristics, including different color patterns, the size, comparing to a jigsaw puzzle, the researcher said, when they started to put all the pieces together, they realized that not were not Perrin's, but they really did not appear to match any other "characteristics of described beaked whales."
Furthermore, the researchers say they are extremely confident they discovered a new species. They collected samples of water near the whales to examine the "environmental DNA or eDNA," which Henderson explains will help in assessing if the beaked whales were indeed a new species.
Discovering Something New and Unexpected in the Area
According to Henderson, they're literally taking samples of water "from where the whales dove, so right where they were."
Their hope, she said, is that there is some genomic material remaining in water, whether it's a sloughed skin or some "remnants of fecal matter.
Meanwhile, in a statement, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA senior scientist Jay Barlow said they saw something new.
Something that was unexpected in the area, something that did not match, "either visually or acoustically," anything that's known to have existed, he added.
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