MONSTER BEACHED
Incredible footage shows the carcass of a giant 24-metre-long blue whale washed up on a beach
Huge animal is believed to have died after being struck by a passing ship
THIS massive 24 metre-long blue whale which washed up on a beach in California is believed to have died after being struck by a passing ship.
Scientists have been examining the 79ft carcass after it was spotted floating in the water off the coast of Marine County on Thursday.
2
The experts, from the Marine Mammal Center and California Academy of Sciences, have taken measurements and tissue samples from the young female.
A full autopsy is due to be performed today to find the cause of death, but it is thought the creature died after being hit by the ship.
Blue whales, the largest creatures on earth, are listed on the Endangered Species Act and it estimated around 2,800 live off the Californian coast.
MOST READ IN NEWS
This whale was identified through markings and has been viewed more than a dozen times near the Santa Barbara channel after it was first spotted in 1999.
“We rarely have the opportunity to examine blue whales due to their endangered status,” Barbie Halaska, research assistant at the Marine Mammal Center told CBS San Francisco.
“The opportunity to perform a necropsy on a carcass in this good condition will help contribute to our data on the species.”
Blue whales, which can weigh more than 200 tonnes and grow to 100ft, feast mainly on shrimp-like animals called Krill, and they became giants when climate change introduced them to binge-eating, recent research has shown.
2
They cruise through the ocean at five miles per hour, and can hear other whales from up to 1,000 miles away, according to National Geographic.
Between 1900 and the mid-1960s some 360,000 blue whales were slaughtered before they were given protected status by the International Whaling Commission.
A mysterious sea creature the size of a cargo container which washed up on Hulung Beach on Seram Island in Indonesia was finally identified as a whale, while a massive white whale washed up in Devon in March.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368