海角大神

For the first time, the elusive True's beaked whale 鈥� one of the most mysterious aquatic mammals on Earth 鈥� has been captured on video.

True's beaked whales are known for extremely deep dives, spending , and can spend hours beneath using only a single breath of air.聽They are not attracted by boats, travel only in small groups, and do not leap out of the water playfully like dolphins. Many of the researchers who study these creatures may go their entire lives without ever seeing one.

鈥淚magine,鈥� said Natacha Aguilar de Soto, lead author of the study that includes the rare footage of the whale, according to The Washington Post.聽鈥淭hese are animals the size of elephants that we just can't find. .鈥�

But in 2013, a colleague sent her a video clip of three of the whales, including a never-before-photographed calf, taken by students in Archipelago of the Azores in Portugal. Dr. Aguilar de Soto, a marine biologist with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the University of La Laguna in the Canary Islands,聽knew what she was seeing almost instantly, but the sight of the whales is so rare, she had trouble processing it at first.

鈥淲hen I saw the video, I just couldn鈥檛 believe it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 thought, 'My God, these are True's beaked whales.' 鈥�

It's easy to understand the initial disbelief when you consider the rarity of the creature. Usually, beaked whales are seen only聽when they occasionally聽wash up dead on shore, or pulled up to the surface when they become entangled in fishing nets. As 海角大神聽reported during one beaching in July 2015:

Swimmers and sunbathers on Jones Beach in Plymouth, Mass. were joined ... by an unexpected guest: a rarely seen beaked whale.

The 17-foot-long female whale weighing almost a ton had died by the time it washed up on the beach. The New England Aquarium said it believes the animal was a Sowerby鈥檚 beaked whale, a species of deep-water whale that inhabits northern waters and virtually never approaches the shore.

The aquarium said in a statement ... that beaked whales are 鈥渟o rarely seen that New England Aquarium biologists have been conferring to determine the exact species,鈥澛犅燭he aquarium has not seen a beaked whale in close to a decade, the statement said. Usually, sightings of Sowerby鈥檚 beaked whales are limited to fishermen who find the whales caught in their nets.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a glimpse into a habitat that鈥檚 not so far away, but it鈥檚 still a world away,鈥� aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse聽聽of the sighting. 鈥淭hey live in a world of their own.鈥�

The True's beaked whale is one of about 22 species of beaked whales, three of which were discovered in the past 20 years alone. This rare group of toothed whales in the family Ziphiidae聽is very poorly understood by scientists, who generally rely on photographs, video, tagging, and live specimens to understand the habits of the creatures that they study. Their聽true range, extent, and function in the ocean's ecosystem is still a matter of debate. And now, the short聽46-second video clip sent to聽Aguilar de Soto is all the video that we have of the elusive True's beaked whale.聽

The video, along with photographs of other sightings and DNA analysis from washed-up True's beaked whales appeared alongside an聽 that included an identification of a specimen stranded in the Canary Islands with a never-before-seen, possibly highly rare, color pattern.

While little is known about beaked whales, researchers do know that they are vulnerable to human factors; many of the creatures have been found with plastic in their stomachs, sometimes even bearing wounds from boat propellers. We also know that they are vulnerable to military sonar, which can confuse whole groups and lead to mass strandings.

But in order to help them as effectively as possible, scientists still need to learn more about these mysterious creatures.

鈥淏eaked whales are an incredible example of the adaptations聽of mammals to the ocean,鈥� Aguilar de Soto said. 鈥淭hey overcome incredible physiological challenges to dive, but that means they are聽very sensitive to anything that changes or challenges聽the physiological balance.鈥�