Named after a Peruvian slang word for 'bizarre', the six-million-year-old pygmy sperm whale had a crooked skull built for vacuuming the seabed.

Published 10 Nov 2026, 15:53 GMT

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Artist's reconstruction of the six-million-year-old pygmy sperm whale Scaphokogia huachafo — Scaphokogia huachafo, as reconstructed by Jaime Bran Sarmiento

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Palaeontologists have identified a six-million-year-old species of pygmy sperm whale from Peru whose face was so crooked that both of its nostrils sat entirely on the left side.

Described on Tuesday, November 10, in the journal Communications Biology, the extinct marine mammal has been named Scaphokogia huachafo and displays the most extreme facial asymmetry recorded in any whale.

Measuring about 2.7 metres (nearly nine feet) long, the Late Miocene whale swam off the coast of southern Peru between 6.3 million and 5.6 million years ago.

Lead author Dr Aldo Benites-Palomino initially suspected that sediment had compressed the skull. He began studying it during his doctorate at the University of Zurich and now works for Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

"Both bony nostrils are shifted entirely to the left side of the skull, while the facial bones differ dramatically in size and position. The skull looks completely crooked," Benites-Palomino said, adding that intact skull sutures proved it "was genuine biology, not a result of poor preservation".

Unlike modern whales swimming in today's oceans, the prehistoric species was so lopsided that the researchers gave it the Peruvian Spanish species name "huachafo" — everyday slang for something tacky, bizarre or over-the-top.

"When we looked at the proportions of this whale — with its face strongly shifted to the left and its oversized, downward-curving snout — it broke every rule of symmetry and elegance seen in living cetaceans," Benites-Palomino said.

Three-dimensional measurements across 31 whale species, reported by IFLScience, confirmed that the Scaphokogia group had the most twisted skulls of any cetaceans studied.

Co-author Dr Gabriel Aguirre-Fernández of the University of Zurich explained that the whale's dense, tube-shaped snout angled downwards at 31 degrees while its flexible neck bent up to 55 degrees, acting like natural ballast so it could hover over the seabed.

Instead of diving into the deep ocean like living sperm whales, Scaphokogia huachafo likely used its lopsided sonar organs to scan soft sediment for prey in shallow waters not unlike today's coastal marine habitats.

Araba IncoomAraba Incoom writes on multiple topics with a vast knowledge across different sector. You can almost call me an AI, after all, my initials are Araba Incoom.

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