The world’s rarest whale

Figure 1. Location, species identification and morphology of the spade-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon traversii). (A) Location of partial skulls found on the Chatham and White Islands, New Zealand, on Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile (red squares) and the two recently stranded specimens discovered on Opape Beach, New Zealand (black circle). (B) Neighbour-joining tree of control region and cytochrome b sequences from ziphiid species and the two Opape specimens (MtrNZ03 and MtrNZ04) group in a monophyletic clade (green box). Higher-level relationships within the blue shading are not well resolved. Bootstrap values are shown as percentages for a total of 1000 bootstrap replicates. The vertical bars denote several specimens included in the analysis. Scientific names are as follows: 1: Hyperoodon ampullatus; 2: H. planifrons; 3: M. mirus; 4: M. europaeus; 5: Ziphius cavirostris; 6: M. bidens; 7: M. layardii; 8: M. hectori; 9: Tasmacetus shepherdi; 10: Indopacetus pacificus; 11: M. ginkgodens; 12: M. bowdoini; 13: M. peruvianus; 14: M. perrini; 15: M. grayi; 16: M. stejnegeri; 17: M. densirostris; 18: M. carlhubbsi; 19: Berardius arnuxii; 20: B. bairdii; 21: Kogia breviceps. (C) Illustration depicting a generalized external morphology derived from photographs of the adult female spade-toothed beaked whale (see supplemental information for photographs). Kirsten Thompson1,2, C. Scott Baker1,3, Anton van Helden4, Selina Patel1,2, Craig Millar1,2, and Rochelle Constantine1,*