Washed up on a beach in Southern Australia , scientists discovered the stranded body of a whale thatbaffledthem . While it was obviously the carcass of a rare deep diving pick whale , not often seen in the wild , the contents of its mouth shed the experts . Identified as a female , it had two low tusks normally only find in the male marine mammals . Was this a novel species previously unidentified , or was this a strange oddity from the deep ?
After hire it back to theSouth Australian Museum , theresearchers were able-bodied tostrip the skull of physique , and revealed the two rudimentary tusks poking out from the jaw . When the scientists removed them , however , they found two small teeth underneath , typical for a species known as Hector ’s pick whale ( Mesoplodon hectori ) . Mystery ostensibly solved . Yet this still does n’t explain what a usually toothless female person is doing with two big tusks .
The skull of the whale stripped of flesh , with the larger projecting tooth next to the normal one which was found underneath . South Australian Museum
There is a tidy sum of mystery wall all species ofbeaked whales . This is due to their largely unexplored and uncontrived habitat , their bass dive behavior , and their presume low copiousness . While 22 species of the whales are known to survive , only 4 have been studied in any particular , and even that this is in general because they either used to be – or still are – hunted commercially . The whales are unusual for their “ beak ” which makes them look more like dolphinfish , and are known for their deep diving habits . The record fix forthe deep diving mammalis by the Cuvier ’s peck hulk which has been clocked swim at 2,992 meter ( 9,816 foot ) down .
Close up detail showing the normal tooth establish in distaff Hector ’s beaked whales ( top ) and the strange larger tooth ( bottom ) normally set aside for the males . South Australian Museum
Bizarrely , most mintage only in reality only have one pair of teeth , with one exception being Shepherd ’s beaked giant , and these do not usually erupt through the females glue . It has been thought that they only project out in the males to aid in competing with each other for female . This is why the front of the gravid teeth found in the female person wash up in South Australia is nonplus , leading some to hint that the maroon whale represent some variety of evolutionary reversion to when both sexual urge had prominent tooth .
With so few examples of the specie , however , few finis can in reality be drawn from this model . Are erupting tooth in females more common than antecedently thought , or is this simply a variation seen in this one female ? While most narwals have just one tusk , for example , sometimes the unpaired individual is found with two . Is this Hector ’s beaked whale an equivalent exercise ? The researchers have mail tissue samples away for transmitted analysis to try and support their findings , and with so little known about the species , and mathematical group as a whole , any new information about them is invaluable .
