A fifteen foot saber tooth whale washed ashore in Southern California on a popular beach in Venice. Whales are very common in California such as humback whales, blue whales and grey whales that are often spotted in the ocean but this type of whale is extremely rare.
"In an extraordinary way even for scientists, the carcass of the nearly 15-foot and 2,000-pound whale was intact -- except for a couple of fresh bite marks from sharks. The whale, a female, apparently was barely alive when it came ashore -- a highly unusual sight because beached whales are often badly decomposed or badly eaten by marine life, a local biologist said," reported The LA Times.
Heather Doyle, director of the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium said according to CNN "It was really humbling and sad to see such a majestic creature stranded this way,"
"It was a female, and she was covered with cookie cutter shark bites... It is VERY rare and almost never seen alive," the environmental non-profit Heal the Bay posted on its Facebook page about the creature.
The animal is known to typically live in the Bering Sea or off the coast of Japan. The animal was taken in by The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum's Stranding Recovery Team and taken away for a necropsy. The necropsy chould reveal more information about how the creature died.
Peter Wallerstein from Marine Animal Rescue said to City News Service that he helped get the animal out of the water when it was still alive.
"I was kind of shocked because we couldn't identify it," he added.
"The whales are believed to dive deep in subarctic waters to feed on small deep-water fish and cephalopods, such as squid. Males are known for their tusk-like teeth that jut out from a portion of their lower jaws. The teeth of females and juveniles, though, remain hidden beneath gum tissue of the mouth." Reported The LA Times.
See a photo here.
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