pygmy right whale
bleimanb | May 7, 2008This 6-month old pygmy right whale stranded itself on the beach in New Zealand. It is being dissected by a team of scientists as I write this! The whale has a similar head to true right whales, but scientists do not believe that they are closely related. In fact, they are not quite sure where these rare whales fit into the overall evolutionary tree. Hopefully this dissection will help them put some of the pieces in the puzzle.
You can watch along step by step, as these Museum of New Zealand researchers carve their way through this little guy on Te Papa's Blog.