Already feared extinct, the world’s rarest whale species, the Omura's whale, has finally been captured on video by a group of marine biologists.
These whales were not declared a separate species upon discovery, as they were often thought to belong to a different whale family. However, genetic data gathered from dead samples in 2003 confirmed that they are a unique species. To this day, no live sample has been gathered from the Omura's whales, only carcasses and left over bits from Japanese whaling expeditions, The Washington Post reports.
Salvatore Cerchio led an international team of marine biologists with the Wildlife Conservation Society, New England Aquarium (NEAQ) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The groups' sighting has confirmed that they have observed a population of Omura’s whales in their natural habitat for the first time, according to The Inquistr.
With the discovery, the biologists are able to cite more differences of the Omura's from other whales, like the asymmetrical skin pigmentation on the head of an Omura's whale.
"When we clearly saw that the right jaw was white, and the left jaw was black, we knew that we were on to something very special," said Cerchio, according to Business Insider.
