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The fact that this strange creature exists does not necessarily mean that it is a new species.
Is Mother Nature still giving the world new specimens? A year ago, a group of researchers discovered a very rare cetacean, which looked like a hybrid of what could be considered a dolphin and a whale off the coast of Hawaii. Today, a new badysis published by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command confirms the strange nature of the animal.
The dorsal fin of the unknown creature is stiff, like that of a whale with a melon head. But scientists have observed that his face was not as round as a whale, and looked more like a dolphin with rough teeth. According to Robin Baird, marine biologist and first signatory of the research team:
"We had the photos and we suspected that it was a hybrid of intermediate morphological features. between species.Now we can confirm it. "
Biologists have managed to obtain a biopsy using a crossbow, equipped with a special dart, which prevents deep penetration and returns a sample of the skin of the animal. This confirmed the ancestry of the animal, it is the first known hybrid between these two species, which was baptized in common jargon as Wholphin.
That sounds like a crazy thing, but let's go slowly. Science has shown us that Peponocephala electra is a species of delphinids and that dolphins are, in fact, a subfamily of whales. Thus, it does not seem so complicated that the two species can reproduce.
This is not the first time that there is news of dolphins hybrids. There are cases, such as the crossing of a dolphin and a false killer whale or that of a beluga and a narwhal, who was named Narflugfa
The Truth, and it is important to clarify, it is that it is not necessarily a new species, the reason. Most hybrids are infertile or breed very hard, which means that they can not produce viable offspring with their own species.
But there is no reason to be discouraged, there are stories like the finches Galapagos. hybrids that have managed to become a species in just two generations.
The team of researchers will continue to investigate the Wholphin to find out more and perhaps, we do not know, soon we will be facing a new marine species. (function (d, s, id) {
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