A mislabeled fossil inside a storage room of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has been rediscovered by researchers to actually be that of a sperm whale rather than an extinct walrus.
Researchers have renamed the species "Albicetus oxymycterus," which is based off the Latin term for white whale, "albus cetus." The name is given in honor of Herman Melville's classic novel "Moby Dick," which tells the story of a sperm whale that terrorizes the people aboard a whaling ship, eventually destroying the vessel, according to BBC News.
"Because the fossil specimen is a pale white color, and an ancient sperm whale, it seemed appropriate to honour Melville's infamous whale," said Alex Boersma, researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History in Washington, according to ABC News Australia.
Modern whales reach as long as 16 meters, but this rediscovered whale fossil was only 6m long, immediately supporting how the whales have evolved throughout the centuries. The old whale, which is dated to have lived 15 million years ago, also does not bear the block-shape head that current whales have evolved to.
The discovery of the mislabeled fossil calls for museum curators around the world to check up on their own storage rooms. Misidentified artifacts like the fossils might be down there, too, and it is up to curators to make sure everything valuable to science begins surfacing from the dark, according to Kathryn Davis, environmental historian at San Jose State University, Smithsonian.com reported.
The researchers published their findings in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal PLOS ONE.
