This undated illustration provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Southwest Fisheries Science Center shows a species of beaked whale. (AP)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Genetic tests confirm that a mysterious, unnamed species of beaked whale only rarely seen alive by Japanese fishermen roams the northern Pacific Ocean, according to research published this week.
The testing shows the black whales, with bulbous heads and beaks like porpoises, are not dwarf varieties of more common Baird’s beaked whales, a slate-gray animal.
Japanese researchers sampled three black beaked whales that washed up on the north coast of Hokkaido, the country’s most northern island, and wrote about them in a 2013 paper. The challenge to confirm the existence of the new animal was finding enough specimens from a wider area for testing and matching genetic samples, said Phillip Morin, a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration research molecular biologist.
He and his team uncovered five other whales, all found in Alaska, that matched the species found in Japan.
“Clearly this species is very rare and reminds us how much we have to learn about the ocean and even some of its largest inhabitants,” he said in an announcement.
The largest beaked whale varieties can reach 40 feet and spend up to 90 minutes underwater hunting for squid in deep water. They are hard to research because they may spend only a few minutes at the surface, Morin said by phone Thursday.