Surprising skull

Ranger Rick, April, 1998

The whale skull above was found on an island off the coast of Chile, in South America. When scientists examined it, they discovered it was from a new, never-seen-before species! They named it Bahamonde's beaked whale.

Scientists would like to see some of these whales alive and swimming around. That's hard to do, though. There are 19 different kinds of beaked whales (counting this new one), and scientists rarely see any of them. Beaked whales are mysterious, deep-diving animals. Scientists think this new whale is probably about the size of an elephant.