Saber-Toothed Whale Washed Ashore on California Beach (PHOTO)

A rare Saber-toothed whale was found dead on the shore Tuesday night in Venice Beach, California. The Stejneger’s Beaked Whales are seldom seen along the California shore. They prefer the more frigid subarctic waters of the Bering Sea or off the coast of Japan.

Heal The Bay posted photos of the whale on Facebook with the caption:

“A Stejneger’s Beaked Whale washed ashore in Venice Beach last night. It was a female, and she was covered with cookie cutter shark bites. The Stejneger’s Beaked Whale is a Northern species that frequents our coast but is predominantly found in the waters of Alaska. It is VERY rare and almost never seen alive. Our team from the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium made it down just in time as David Janiger of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum’s Stranding Response Team had loaded it onto a flat bed truck. They are currently taking the whale away to be studied.”

PHOTO

Here is an update from the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium:

“Rare beaked whale update! The stranded female beaked whale from Venice Beach may actually turn out to be a different species than our preliminary examination suggested (which is Stejneger’s beaked whale). It JUST might be a similar but MUCH more rare species: the Ginkgo-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon ginkgodens)! There have been less that 20 strandings of this species world-wide: only two in the entire eastern North Pacific, and just one in southern CA (1954)! My husband Dave Janiger will be working up the skull today, and will send her embedded teeth to beaked whale authority Dr. Jim Mead, and tissue samples to NMFSC for genetic analysis. What an exciting mystery from the deep!”