美国国家公共电台 NPR Mysterious Type Of Killer Whale, Sought After For Years, Found In Southern Ocean（在线收听）

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Scientists say they've located a mysterious type of killer whale living in the oceans near Antarctica. They say it could be the largest animal unidentified by biologists until now. NPR's Christopher Joyce has the story.

CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: The notion that there might be some new kind of killer whale emerged in 1955. Photos from New Zealand showed a bunch of killer whales stranded on a beach.

BOB PITMAN: This was a very different-looking group of killer whales.

JOYCE: Bob Pitman is a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The whales were smaller than other killer whales. They had rounded heads and pointier fins.

PITMAN: And most importantly, they have a little, tiny eye patch.

JOYCE: A white spot under each eye smaller than other killer whales. Biologists were mystified. Then in 2005, Pitman met a French biologist who showed him a photo of an odd killer whale swimming in the Indian Ocean.

PITMAN: And I looked down, and there they were - the New Zealand killer whales.

JOYCE: For Pitman, the hunt was on. Last year, he assembled a team to go to Cape Horn in Chile to look for what's now technically called the Type D killer whale. Local fishers had been complaining that some kind of whale was stripping fish off their lines. NOAA biologist Lisa Ballance, who's married to Pitman, was part of the team.

LISA BALLANCE: From the beginning, I had referred to it as the needle in the haystack. It's a big ocean, and it's a rough ocean.

JOYCE: It was a slow start. Their ship in Cape Horn was trapped at anchor for eight days by howling weather, but then they got a 12-hour quiet spell.

BALLANCE: We left that night, pounded into the seas so that we could get to our spot at first light the next morning.

PITMAN: Sun came up in the morning at 5:50. We had Type D killer whales swimming around our boat.

BALLANCE: There they were. It was thrilling.

PITMAN: It's like seeing a dinosaur or something. It's one of these moments that biologists live for. And I said that's them; that's the New Zealand killer whale.

BALLANCE: This form is the most unusual and distinct form of killer whale on the planet.

JOYCE: Later the team realized why the whales swam up to them. The team had lowered an underwater microphone over the side on a long cable with GoPro cameras attached. Pitman says it must have looked like a fishing line with fish on it. It looked like breakfast.

PITMAN: You can imagine them thinking, hey, where's our fish?

JOYCE: (Laughter).

PITMAN: But that was definitely the way to bring them into the boat.

JOYCE: The team was able to snip off small tissue samples from the whales. An analysis of the DNA will determine if this is actually a completely new species or just an unusual subtype. But the mystery killer whales of the Southern Ocean have been found. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BOWIE SONG, "NEW KILLER STAR")