For the very first time, scientists have spotted a living ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, a rare, deep-diving species that until this sighting had previously only been known from a handful of strandings. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

These elusive whales were only described for the first time in 1958 , after one became stranded on a beach near Tokyo. That ended up setting the tone for the next 66 years, with only a sparse number of sightings since then and all of them also involving dead whales. Researchers may have spotted a living ginkgo-toothed beaked whale in 2021 in the South China Sea, but it wasn’t confirmed.

At the same time, there was a mystery afoot in the North Pacific. Beaked whales are known to produc

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