The researchers have made an incredible find by sighting Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whales off the Mexican coast. This accomplishment represents a huge step forward in our understanding of marine biology. This was the first time anyone had seen this in June of 2024. It’s impressive because nobody has ever seen these mysterious creatures in person while living… until now! The Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whale is still a very enigmatic species. Each time, people are accustomed to discovering it when it beaches in advanced decomposition, predominantly along the coast of California.
The Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whale is part of a much broader family of Beaked Whales, which includes 24 identified species. These mammals are recognized as the deepest-diving animals on Earth, spending the majority of their lives submerged in the ocean. More accurately, they all go underwater—we only see them briefly during a small window of time. Too often, they do so well inland from coastal communities.
Until this point, there have only been six recorded, read Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whales strandings. All of these cases were found along the California coast, and each whale was found in a very advanced state of decomposition. Robert Pitman, a research zoologist with Oregon State University, has spent decades studying whales. To have all these findings together, he said, is extremely rare.
“There were two strandings on the west coast of North America previously, but they had always been assumed to have been anomalous – animals that washed ashore or were sick,” said Pitman.
It took five years of searching, researching, and tracking to locate and identify the Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whale. Pitman has found 90 of the 94 species of whales on his bucket list so far. Yet impressively, a fourth of these are Beaked Whales.
“A quarter of those are beaked whales, but most people have never even heard of them. These are the largest, least-known animals left on the planet,” he explained.
Despite their elusive nature, scientists are working hard to figure out the distribution of Beaked Whales using acoustic data. Scientists have been frantically working to identify these whale calls to species. Most of these calls go unrecognized because they are missing visual records at sea. For many Beaked Whale species, there is not yet a known call, or even a scientifically documented visual sighting.
Elizabeth Henderson, a member of the research team, said she was thrilled to make the discovery.
“I can’t even describe the feeling because it was something that we had worked towards for so long,” she stated.
The excitement of the team was evident as they caught their first glances of the whales.
“Everybody on the boat was cheering because we had it, we finally had it,” Henderson added.
This rare sighting of Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whales provides important information about their behavior. Yet, it opens up new questions, crucially, how are they distributed and what is their role in the ecology? Pitman thinks the previous strandings don’t paint the complete picture about their habitat.
“I think those are just vagrants. It’s someplace else, and we are not quite sure where to go look for this thing,” he remarked.
The recent identification of live Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whales off Mexico represents new opportunities for research and conservation efforts. Their reclusive nature and penchant for avoiding human encounters at all costs renders them almost impossible to observe in the wild. Regardless, this hopeful recent sighting serves to remind everyone that we can still learn more about these elusive creatures.