Mesoplodon traversii

Monday 13 March in Morocco was found stranded and dead a 5 meter-long individual of Traver’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon traversii), one of the rarest cetacean species in the world. To this day, there isn’t any evidence of sighting these animals alive.

The individual was found on a beach in Torres, a location 60km from the city of Al Hoceima, north of Morocco.

This species was known exclusively on the basis of the findings of pieces of bones; then in the 2010 in New Zealand, two individuals – mother and calf – were found stranded and dead, event that allowed for the first time the observation of a whole animal of this species.

The Traver’s beaked whale belongs to the Ziphiidae, a family of cetaceans that live at great depths and is particularly sensitive to the human-related acoustic pollution (which can cause in the animals the loss of orientation and thus the stranding).

This species is included in the category ‘data deficient’ in the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).