On January 10th, 2024 an enormous 12-foot whale jawbone washed up in Bethany Beach. It was spotted by a woman named Maura Rudder, who notified town officials and then it made its way to the institute. As of today, the Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute has custody of the whale jaw and MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said “the bone is the lower jaw of some species of baleen whale.” She theorized that it could be from a right whale, which is a species of baleen whale and is attempting to contact the Smithsonian so it can be studied. 

“It’s hard to determine the species from a single bone,” Thurman said, but she suspects the whale was at least a sub-adult due to the bone’s size. There are lots of questions and speculations that people have about why the jaw had shown up where it did, but the only answer that Thurman had given was that “It’s quite possible the storm churned it up,” she said. “We’re intrigued by it and we’re really eager to find out more.”