February 1, 2021 — A new species of baleen whale has been identified in the Gulf of Mexico.
Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a paper earlier this month in Marine Mammal Science explaining that a whale previously thought to be a subspecies of the Bryde’s whale is actually a new species entirely.
Bryde’s whales live in the warm waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and are closely related to the blue and humpback whale.
Patricia Rosel, a research geneticist with NOAA Fisheries who led the study, said genetic data gathered from the newly discovered species in the early 2000s hinted at a divergent evolutionary lineage, but more concrete evidence came after researchers were able to examine the skull of the species that washed up on a Florida beach in 2019.