So I’m at my desk when my cell rings – its Anton (you know – our Collection Manager Marine Mammals)…
“Do you wanna see a dead whale?”
Of course! So off I trot (nice and quicksmart in time with whatever’s playing on my MP3) – not even worrying about what the Wellington wind was doing to my hair… you can’t turn your nose up to this kind of opportunity!
Anton pointing down to the washed up dead whale.
And there it was – I wasn’t too sure what I was expecting but this poor creature had been dead at least a couple of days, so it wasn’t in the best shape. It had been battered around by waves, dashed against rocks, pecked and chewed by various creatures.
My first view of the dead Pygmy Sperm whale
DoC had been contacted – their plan was to tow it back out to open sea – a floating restaurant for lots of happy sea creatures.
Two things I have learnt about a Pygmy sperm whale – notice three-quarters of the way towards its tail there’s discolouring in the water – I thought it was blood… its ink! We think they squirt ink out much like a squid does to confuse and escape from predators.
The other thing (although it has decomposed so much you couldn’t see it) is that these whales have markings just behind their heads that imitate gills. So, from a distance they could be mistaken for great white sharks.
The sneaky camouflage whale!
Measurements were taken (have just been told it was 3.2 metres long) and samples collected which will help us figure out its age and genetic make-up.
Measuring
By this time critical mass of onlookers had been achieved so passers by were now stopping to see what the go was. Of course nobody had been interested when it was just Anton and myself 
All those people walked on by who missed this opportunity… hence the blog! Too exciting and interesting not to share!
Moko, the resident bottlenose dolphin at Mahia, was the heroine of the day last week.
The amazing story of how a dolphin helped save a stranded pygmy sperm whale mother and her calf made news headlines in NZ – and was even picked up by media around the world!
Read the story here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4436390a11.html
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Dolphin-leads-whales-out-of.3872748.jp
The area around Mahia, on NZ’s east coast of the North Island, is a hot spot for whale strandings. Pygmy sperm whales in particular strand here quite often. If you’re not sure where Mahia is, check out the big strandings hot spot map in the Whales Tohorä exhibition at Te Papa.
Malcolm Smith, from the Department of Conservation, with the help of locals tried to refloat the whales several times – but each time they restranded. When Moko showed up, it seems the dolphin was able to help the whales find their way safely back out to sea.
So what does a pygmy sperm whale look like? In our office the Whales team have a mascot - an old museum model of a pygmy sperm whale calf, shown here with its ‘keeper’, Lucy Ryan.
And if you come and visit the exhibition, in the ‘Feeding’ interactive you can see a video clip of a young pygmy sperm whale being hand fed.
