According to The daily Telegraph,

The 7m-long Longman's beaked whale, which washed up on a beach at Byron Bay, was last seen in Australia in 1882.

The species, which has a dolphin-like beak, is so rare that at one time it was thought extinct.

Only one other complete adult example of the species has been found. It died after being discovered on a beach on Japan's southern coast in 2002.

Prior to that only two partial skeletons had been located, one in Australia and the other in Somalia in 1955.

I understand that the 2002 sighting/find can be seen here at the Dolphin Studies web Site from South Africa although I am not sure this is the SAME reference to the find in 2002 in Japan?

The Marentsum.org website has a colour depiction of the Longman Beaked Whale here

The ABC regional Networks also covers the story here

According to Brisbane's Courier Mail, swimmers and surfers tried to save the whale from beaching, only to see it return 30 minutes later, beach itself and die.

Background:

Longman's Beaked Whale is one of the most enigmatic of whales, which has never been identified in the flesh. Two skulls found on beaches have been assigned to this species: one from Queensland, Australia, the other from Somalia. It is thought that this is a deepsea Indo-Pacific species.

Classification: Longman originally thought this species to belong to the genus Mesoplodon and to resemble True's Beaked Whale. In 1926 - some forty-four years after the first skull was found - he gave it the name pacificus, in order to distinguish it from the latter, which was only known by three specimens at the time. However, Alan N. Baker from New Zealand's National Museum has suggested that one of the skulls is too large for a Mesoplodon, and, like other scientists, believes that Longman's Beaked Whale should be in a genus of its own, Indopacetus. The debate - and the mystery of this cetacean - continues.

[Source: Cetacea.org]

1:42:20 PM    

Scientists Intrigued by Rare Dead Whale (AP). AP - The body of a whale resembling a giant dolphin that washed up on an eastern Australian beach has intrigued local scientists, who agreed Wednesday that it is rare but are not sure just how rare.

[Source: Yahoo! News: Reader Ratings]
1:01:09 PM