An extremely rare Longman's beaked whale, only the third complete specimen known to science, has washed up on a South African beach, a senior scientist said today.
"The animal is a male and it was found on Thursday. Rare beaked whale found on S.Africa beach
There have been only two recorded sightings of a live beaked whale in the wild.
The physical evidence of the animal's existence is limited to three skulls found in Somalia, Kenya and Tasmania, and two carcasses that also washed up on South African beaches, one in the early 1980s and the other in 1992.
Cockcroft said he had initially misidentified the earlier specimens but DNA tests conducted in 1999 showed they were Longman's beaked whales.
This is not the first strange creature from the deep to be found on South Africa's shores this year. The discovery of the beaked whale comes just over three months after a rarely seen megamouth shark, unknown to science before 1976, was found on a beach in the same area.