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Toothed whales have torpedo-shaped bodies with usually inflexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, no outer ears, a large tail fin, and bulbous heads (with the exception of the sperm whale family). Their skulls have small eye orbits, long beaks (with the exception sperm whales), and eyes placed on the sides of their heads.
Generally their teeth have evolved to catch fish, squid or other marine invertebrates, not for chewing them, so prey is swallowed whole. Teeth are shaped like cones (dolphins and sperm whales), spades , pegs , tusks or variable (beaked whale males). Female beaked whales' teeth are hidden in the gums and are not visible, and most male beaked ...
The family Balaenidae, the right whales, contains two genera and four species. All right whales have no ventral grooves; a distinctive head shape with a strongly arched, narrow rostrum, bowed lower jaw; lower lips that enfold the sides and front of the rostrum; and long, narrow, elastic baleen plates (up to nine times longer than wide) with fine baleen fringes.
According to the DOC, the spade-toothed whale was first documented in 1874 from lower jaw and teeth samples collected on Pitt Island, around 500 miles off New Zealand’s west coast.
Since the 1800s, only six other spade-toothed whales have been documented. On July 4, a spade-toothed whale washed up near Taiari Mouth in New Zealand and is the first whole animal recovered in ...
True’s beaked whales sometimes breach Surfacing patterns of True’s beaked whales. This whale has a normal mesoplodont body, except that it is rotund in the middle and tapering towards the ends. The two distinctive teeth on the males are small and set on the very end of the beak (however additional teeth have been recorded [5]). The melon is ...
Spade-toothed whales are the world’s rarest, with no live sightings ever recorded. No one knows how many there are, what they eat, or even where they live in the vast expanse of the southern ...
The beak is of medium length, and the mouthline forms an arch, though much smoother than other species. The teeth of the males are much larger than those of most other mesoplodonts and point forwards and inwards right in front of the apex. Only strap-toothed whales and spade-toothed whales have longer teeth. The coloration is overall dark gray ...