Case of Mistaken Identity Corrected to Reveal New Beaked Whale Species

The mysterious world of beaked whales has a new character, or at least a corrected case of mistaken identity, after researchers identified a new species of the elusive marine mammal, bringing the total to 22 recognized species.

Although deep-diving beaked whales are found in waters across the world, little is known about them. This new species of beaked whale, known as Mesoplodon hotaula, was identified after an analysis of seven specimens that stranded themselves on remote islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans over the last half century.

The first specimen of this new species was found in Sri Lanka in 1963. At the time, Paulus Deraniyagala, the director of the National Museums of Ceylon, believed M. hotaula to be a new species and classified it as such, giving it the name it has today.

However, several years after Deraniyagala described the species, it was reclassified as a specimen of an already-existing species, the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon ginkgodens).

"Now it turns out that Deraniyagala was right regarding the uniqueness of the whale he identified. While it is closely related to the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, it is definitely not the same species," said Merel Dalebout of the University of New South Wales, lead author of a paper describing the once-new-again specimen in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

Using seven specimens, Dalebout and colleagues took genetic samples and conducted a morphological analysis of the beaked whale to conclude that it is indeed its own unique species.

To confirm their results, the researchers compared the whale's DNA to genetic material from all other known beaked whale species.

"A number of species in this group are known from only a handful of animals, and we are still finding new ones, so the situation with Deraniyagala's whale is not that unusual," Dalebout said. "For example, the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, first described in 1963, is only known from about 30 strandings and has never been seen alive at sea with any certainty. It's always incredible to me to realize how little we really do know about life in the oceans. There's so much out there to discover."