Researchers aboard the Pacific Storm in June 2024 captured and confirmed the first photographs of living ginkgo-toothed beaked whales after locating their distinctive calls with hydrophones. Photographer Craig Hayslip took the images while Robert Pitman collected a biopsy sample that laboratory testing verified. The results were published in Marine Mammal Science in 2025 and mark a major step forward in documenting one of the ocean's least-known whales. The discovery follows years of acoustic monitoring that began in 2020 and underscores the value of combining sound detection, photography, and genetics.
Scientists Capture First Confirmed Photos of Living Ginkgo-Toothed Beaked Whales
Researchers aboard the Pacific Storm in June 2024 captured and confirmed the first photographs of living ginkgo-toothed beaked whales after locating their distinctive calls with hydrophones. Photographer Craig Hayslip took the images while Robert Pitman collected a biopsy sample that laboratory testing verified. The results were published in Marine Mammal Science in 2025 and mark a major step forward in documenting one of the ocean's least-known whales. The discovery follows years of acoustic monitoring that began in 2020 and underscores the value of combining sound detection, photography, and genetics.
11:17 AM, 11/21/2025Science
In June 2024, researchers aboard the research vessel Pacific Storm recorded a milestone for marine science: the first confirmed photographs of living ginkgo-toothed beaked whales. The team—affiliated with Oregon State University and the U.S. Naval Information Warfare Center—located the animals by tracking distinctive underwater calls using shipboard hydrophones.
Observers reported seeing what appeared to be juvenile beaked whales briefly surface. Photographer Craig Hayslip captured images of the animals as they swam, while researcher Robert Pitman collected a small tissue sample using a biopsy dart. Laboratory analysis of that sample confirmed the animals’ identity, validating Hayslip’s photos as the first authenticated images of the species alive at sea. The findings were published in the paper "First At-Sea Identifications of Ginkgo-Toothed Beaked Whale" in Marine Mammal Science (2025).
"I can't even describe the feeling because it was something that we had worked towards for so long," said Elizabeth Henderson, lead author of the paper and a researcher with the Naval Information Warfare Center. "Everybody on the boat was cheering because we had it, we finally had it."
The team had been acoustically monitoring a persistent, distinctive call since 2020; they initially suspected it might belong to Perrin's beaked whale, a species not yet observed alive by scientists. Repeated visits to the same area paid off in 2024 when hydrophone localization led researchers to two ginkgo-toothed beaked whales photographed by Hayslip.
Hydrophones were crucial to the discovery: by detecting and triangulating calls, researchers could pinpoint the animals without needing a visual sighting first—an important advantage for beaked whales, which are among the deepest-diving mammals and surface only briefly to breathe.
"The Society for Marine Mammalogy has a list of 94 accepted species of cetaceans," Pitman said. "A quarter of those are beaked whales, but most people have never even heard of them. These are the largest, least-known animals left on the planet."
Pitman, a retired researcher who has spent decades studying and photographing rare species, said he now hopes to see all 94 accepted cetacean species in person; he has reached 90, including the newly documented ginkgo-toothed beaked whale. The team plans continued acoustic monitoring and targeted expeditions to locate other elusive beaked whales, including the still-unseen Perrin's beaked whale.
Why it matters: The confirmation and at-sea documentation of such a rarely encountered species expands understanding of beaked whale distribution and behavior, demonstrating the value of combining acoustic monitoring with visual and genetic sampling in deep-ocean research.