Practically nothing is known about the biology of Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whales. They are found in the tropical and warm-temperate waters of the western Pacific and are thought to occur primarily in deep, offshore waters. Nearly nothing is known about their food habits. Two individuals that stranded in Japan had squid remains (i.e., whole body, beaks and lenses) in their stomachs; fish remains (otolith, bones) were also found in one of them (Yamada et al. 2012).

There are no confirmed live sightings of this species at sea. Its inferred distribution, primarily in tropical and warm-temperate waters of the western Pacific, is based entirely on stranded specimens (MacLeod et al. 2006), of which the vast majority (at least 28) have been recorded from Japan and Taiwan (Yamada et al. 2012). It is also known from the Philippines (Field Museum 2011). In the Southern Hemisphere, three strandings have been reported in eastern Australia and two in New Zealand, but in all of these cases the identification needs to be confirmed. In the eastern Pacific, single strandings have occurred in southern California and the Galápagos; an oft-cited specimen from Baja California, Mexico (e.g., Leatherwood et al. 1988, MacLeod et al. 2006, Culik 2011) housed in the San Diego Natural History Museum has been identified genetically as M. peruvianus. The recent recognition of the very similar and largely sympatric M. hotaula as a separate species calls into question whether M. ginkgodens occurs in the Indian Ocean at all (Dalebout et al. 2012). M. hotuala was originally described from a stranding in Sri Lanka (Deraniyagala 1963a, b), but a short time later it was synonymized (incorrectly) with M. ginkgodens (Moore and Gilmore 1965). Since then, Sri Lanka has continued to be listed as a range state for M. ginkgodens (e.g., Mead 1989, Jefferson et al. 2015). Specimens reported as M. ginkgodens from China were reidentified as M. densirostris (Wang et al. 2011). Currently, evidence that M. ginkgodens occurs in the Indian Ocean rests on a single tooth of questionable provenance from the Maldives (Anderson et al. 1999).

No map is provided for this species because the distribution is uncertain with a few strandings as the only available data.

The species is listed in Appendix II of CITES. Research is needed to determine the impact of potential threats on this species.