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Spade-toothed beaked whale - world's rarest whale

Spade-toothed beaked whale

The world's rarest whale has been identified - two years after two of them washed up in New Zealand.

An adult female spade-toothed beaked whale and her calf were found beached in 2010, but they were mistaken for a more common type of whale and buried. When tests were done about six months later on samples taken from the mammals, they showed they were actually the rare spade-toothed beaked kind. The whales are so rare that nobody has ever seen one alive.

This year scientists returned to dig out the skeletons of the two whales, so they could study them. It wasn't an easy task and they found the mother's skull had been washed out to sea. Previously, only skull fragments have been discovered and that's only happened three times.

The spade-toothed beaked whale

The spade-toothed beaked whale gets its name because males have wide, blade-like, tusk teeth. Both males and females have beaks which make them look like dolphins. Not much is known about the whales, except that they live in the South Pacific Ocean and eat mainly squid.

Rare endangered Hector's Dolphin surviving in Marine Protected Area - New Zealand

NZ dolphin survival boosted by Marine Protected Area

 

Hector's dolphin (c) S Dawson

Hector's dolphins living off the

coast of Christchurch, New Zealand have benefitted from the area's special designation, say scientists. Researchers studied the animals, one of the world's most endangered species of dolphin, for 21 years. Their results show that the survival rate of the dolphins has increased by 5.4% since the Marine Protection Area (MPA) was declared. The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. "This is the first evidence that Marine Protected Areas can be effective for marine mammals. We found a significant improvement in the survival rate," said Dr Liz Slooten from the University of Otago who undertook the research. In 1988 the Banks Peninsula Marine Mammal Sanctuary was established in the hope that resident dolphins would be protected from fatalities associated with the gillnet and trawling activities of the fishing industry. A team of ecologists conducted regular photo identification of the dolphins for 21 years, starting two years before the area was officially protected.

Project to protect rare Burmese monkey gets new funding

Burmese snub-nosed monkey photographed by a camera trap
Burmese snub-nosed monkey photographed by a camera trap in May 2011
 

A conservation project to help

protect the rare Burmese snub-nosed monkey is one of 33 to get a share of UK Government funding. The species was photographed for the first time last year. The project, led by Fauna and Flora International (FFI), will try to establish how many of the monkeys are left and how best to protect them. The money comes from a long-term scheme called the Darwin Initiative. The Burmese snub-nosed monkey was described scientifically for the first time in 2010 from a dead specimen collected by a local hunter. In May 2011 researchers working in northern Burma captured the first pictures of the species in its natural habitat. A team from FFI, Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association (Banca), and People Resources and Conservation Foundation (PRCF) took the images using camera traps.