This is one of two whales which may be the only fully-preserved specimens of its species ever seen by human kind.

The mother and calf, which washed up ashore on Opape Beach at the Northern tip of New Zealand in 2010 have only just been confirmed to be spade-toothed whales. The delay in identification of the whales is apparently owing to the world’s least efficient animal classification board, who took two whole years to get around to “routine” DNA analysis. Until now, the unlucky pair were thought to be Gray’s beaked whales.

Theories explaining the elusiveness of the spade-toothed whale suggest that the marine mammal may be exceptionally deep divers, rarely surfacing, and feeding mostly on small fish and squid in the deep of the pacific ocean.

And now you’re smarter than your friends.

[Source : Telegraph]