BioSample

Rice's whales are members of the baleen whale family Balaenopteridae. With likely fewer than 100 individuals remaining, Rice's whales are one of the most endangered whales in the world. Recovery of the species depends upon the protection of each remaining whale. The Rice's whale has been consistently located in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, along the continental shelf break between 100 and about 400 meters depth. They are the only resident baleen whale in the Gulf of Mexico and are most closely related to Bryde's (pronounced "broodus") whales. In 2021, scientists determined that the Rice's whale was a unique species, genetically and morphologically distinct from Bryde's whales. This sample was collected from a beach-stranded calf in 2006 and frozen in the National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank (NIST), originally identified as Bryde's whale, then re-classified as Rice's whale based on genetic analysis and geographic location after the Rice's whale species was described. The sample was used and coordinated by Phil Morin to generate a high-quality reference for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genomes Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich D. Jarvis. In Situ Hi-C data (Rao, Huntley et al., Cell 2014) were provided by DNAzoo (from the same animal; DNAzoo.org assembly ID Balaenoptera_ricei_HiC (Hi-C SRX7041795; WGS SRX7041794).