New Zealand scientists cut the world’s rarest whale.

WELLINGTON: New Zealand scientists on Monday began dissecting a whale believed to be the world’s rarest, a species of which only seven specimens have ever been documented.

A dead toothed whale washed ashore on New Zealand’s South Island earlier this year, prompting the study of a deep-sea mammal. It provided an opportunity that has never been seen before. Five meters long, the whale was washed up on the beach in July and has been sitting in a special freezer ever since.

Whale specialist Anton van Helden said it was the first time scientists had been able to dig up a specimen with complete teeth, which belongs to the beaked whale family. “This is a remarkable and globally significant opportunity,” he said.

The week-long process will help fill in the blanks about the whale’s behavior, its diet and even its basic anatomy. “Baked whales are the most enigmatic group of large mammals on the planet,” Van Helden said.

“They are deep divers that are rarely seen in the ocean, which presents real challenges for researching these marine animals. “This is the rarest of the rare — the only one known anywhere in the world. There’s a seventh sample, and it’s the first time we’ve had to do this kind of dissection.”

New Zealand’s Department of Conservation said the toothed whale was “the rarest whale in the world”. The species was first described in 1874 from only a lower jaw and two teeth collected from the Chatham Islands off the east coast of New Zealand.