An accidental death gives scientists the chance to see and study one of the rarest mammals on Earth
The spade-toothed beaked whale has, for some time, been little more than a 15-foot long mystery of the ocean. As the world’s rarest whale, scientists knew very little about it other than what they could glean from various skull fragments found over the last 125 years. It wasn’t until two years ago, in December of 2010, that they first saw more than bones. A mother and a calf washed up on the shores of a New Zealand beach and opened up a whole new chance to study the creature.
