This past July 4th, a rare beaked whale washed up on a beach in New Zealand. This species is so elusive it has never been seen alive, so its appearance now, even as a carcass, is quite surprising.

But this was no ordinary whale. “I immediately went, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s a spade-toothed whale!’” the senior marine science adviser for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC ...

Now, experts in New Zealand are scrambling to confirm whether a 5-meter (16-foot) carcass that recently washed ashore on the country’s South Island is the near-mythical spade-toothed whale.

Marine biologists are examining the remains of what's believed to be a spade-toothed whale, one of the planet’s rarest marine mammals, which washed ashore on a New Zealand beach on July 4.

But on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of mystery. “I can’t tell ...

But on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of mystery. “I can’t tell ...

There has never been a live sighting recorded of the spade-toothed whale. No one knows how many there are, what they eat, or even where they live in the vast expanse of the southern Pacific Ocean.

But on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of mystery. “I can’t tell ...