Rare Breed of Killer Whale May Be New Species

http://animalzoon.blogspot.in/

The rarely-seen "type D" orcas—which live in the Southern Ocean—are one of four varieties of killer whale. Researchers recently sequenced type D's genome using material collected from a museum skeleton from 1955. (Watch: "Killer Whales 'Gang Up' to Capture Seal.")

Scientists first spotted type D killer whales in 1955, when a pod of them washed ashore on a New Zealand beach. The stranding stood out as unusual because of the whales' strange appearance. While typical killer whales—types A, B, and C—have streamlined bodies and large, white eye-patches, type D whales have tiny eye markings and large, bulbous heads. (Watch: "Killer Whales vs. Minke Whale.")

The type D pod's stranding resulted in a handful of photos and the collection of one skeleton by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington (map).

According to Robert Pitman, a marine biologist at the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, and a co-author of the new study, for many years researchers thought the whales were the result of genetic mutations because there were no other known sightings.

But some 50 years after the New Zealand stranding, a group of researchers, including Pitman, took a closer look at the documentation of the event. They unearthed other accounts of the weird whales, and found that the New Zealand pod was not the only sighting in history.

"We started seeing photos of this type of animal from various places, all around the Antarctic waters," Pitman said. "The weather is bad down there all the time," he said. "That's why the whale escaped notice from scientists for so many years."