New whale stomach bacteria found: Scientists identify 3 Helicobacter genotypes

Pygmy sperm whales are among the least studied large mammals in the ocean, spending nearly their entire lives far offshore, diving deep to hunt squid and fish, and rarely surfacing long enough to be observed alive. Most of what scientists know about the species comes instead from whales that wash ashore, and Florida's coastline sees more pygmy sperm whale strandings than almost anywhere else in the world. Now, researchers who spent more than two decades collecting and preserving tissue from these stranded animals have identified three entirely new genotypes of Helicobacter bacteria living in the whales' stomachs, findings that raise fresh questions about a chronic, largely invisible health problem affecting one of the ocean's most elusive species.How decades of stranding data led to the discoveryAccording to Florida Atlantic University, researchers at the university's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute responded to 59 pygmy sperm whale strandings along Florida's coast between 1999 and…