In 1872 , part of a damage giant mandible and set of tooth were ascertain on Pitt Island in New Zealand . Initially thought to be osseous tissue from the Scamperdown whale , also acknowledge as Gray ’s beaked whale , it was not until 1874 that John Edward Gray — who had discovered the Gray ’s beaked hulk — examined the finger cymbals and assigned them to a Modern , never - before - seen species .
Debates among zoologists could n’t immobilize down the name or classification of this newfangled coinage . In the 1950s , a damaged skullcap was found on New Zealand ’s White Island , and was attribute to many unlike species , later include the Bahamonde ’s beaked whale ( which was known from a damaged skull find in 1986 on Robinson Crusoe Island in Chile ) . It was not until 2002 that researcher matched the mandible and teeth from Pitt Island to the skulls from White Island and Robinson Crusoe Island , naming it the spade - toothed beaked giant , Mesoplodon traversii . Yet beyond those three ivory fragments , nobody knew what it looked like , or really anything about it .
Then , in December of 2010 , two giant — an adult female person and a male calf — beached themselves on Opape Beach in the Bay of Plenty , New Zealand . They were initially categorized as Gray ’s beaked whales , an echo of the situation upon the discovery in 1872 . Further DNA enquiry , however , identified these two whales as spade - saw-toothed pick whales , the first complete specimen ever seen .
Scientific American
How this coinage managed to avoid human eyes for so many years is obscure , but this is the first measure toward learning more about the world ’s rarest coinage of giant . The skeletal remains of the whales are now being go along at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa .
