While surveying whales and dolphins off the Hawaiian Islands, scientists spotted a creature they've never seen before: a peculiar hybrid between a dolphin and a small whale.
In 2017, before future naval officers trained on submarines in the waters around Kauai -- a place called the Pacific Missile Range Facility -- the U.S. Navy hired marine researchers from the Cascadia Research Collective to study the native animals in these seas. After encountering a large pod of melon-headed whales, the researchers tagged two of them, to see where they might go.