'Lo and behold': world's rarest whale may have washed up on New Zealand beach

Mysterious spade tooth whales have never been seen alive, or whole, but scientists think a perfect specimen may just have washed up on a beach The world's rarest whale may have just washed up on a beach in New Zealand. Spade-toothed whales, a type of beaked whale named for their teeth resembling the spade-like "flensing" blade once used to strip whales of their blubber, have never been seen alive. Knowledge of their existence is mostly based on a series of bones and tissue discovered decades apart and later sequenced, showing a new, shared DNA.But scientists in New Zealand believe that a whole specimen may just have been found in Taiari Mouth, Otago. It is the proverbial white whale of whale species, and it looks a lot like a very big dolphin. Continue reading...