Creature that washed up on New Zealand beach may be rarest whale | Hacker News Reader

Creature that washed up on New Zealand beach may be rarest whale

cbsnews.com

138 pointsBrajeshwar22 comments

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Stop clickbait: Spade-toothed whale, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spade-toothed_whale

This seems to confirm the title.

I clicked JUST to see the name of the whale. It should be in the title.

Seems like an edge case

It is not. The title doesn't contain the necessary information in purpose.

I thought it's going to be the one tuned to 52 Hz.

A male of a rare species of Mesoplodon, a relatively big (5m), pelagic toothed whale. Very interesting discovery that will allow to look at their DNA and find its position in the family.

This group of animals are the least studied big mammals alive and the family has increased a lot in the last years.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350343353/rare-whale-washes-...

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/environment/522185/extremely-rare...

Not sure why it isn't mentioned in the article, but it looks to have washed ashore around Taieri Mouth.

we're in a post-facts and post-information era of journalism

Yeah that was really odd. I read another version earlier and it mentioned "near Otago" then I see an island that looks remarkably like Taieri Island in the background.

I love how that article has a giant auto-playing video about some completely different whale species.

Now slightly more rare

But eventually less rare, once they get the barbecue going that is.

Deceased beached whale is not animal cruelty to eat. I too am curious.

If not animal cruelty, is definitely animal stupidity (and by animal I mean human animal)

We talk about eating a big animal that died from some unknown cause (maybe plastics?, or poisons?, diseases?), and then resurfaced after a while by the accumulation of decaying gasses. And don't miss the best part, the 90cm parasite worms living in the ear

The boundary between curiosity and stupidity is fractal.

It's a strange geometry alright:

https://www.sea.museum/2013/12/02/bathing-in-a-dead-whale-cr...

In terms of sightings over time, this actually made them significantly less rare. (And statements like that are why it's said that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.)

On the phone but what is the Poisson distribution of this one like with and without?

(Open question)

> creature

So not even an animal?

What? These are synonyms in this context (or almost any Earthbound biology conversation).

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