Mystery of massive 70ft sea creature washed up on popular beach is SOLVED – did you guess right? – The Sun

THE MYSTERY of a massive creature that washed up on a popular UK beach has finally been solved.

Visitors and locals were shocked to discover the rare sight of this large corpse beached on the sand.

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Researchers confirmed the sea giant was a “very large” fin whale, which comes second in size to the blue whale.

This is only the fourth reported sighting of a fin whale to wash up on Welsh shores this century.

It comes after a 41ft (12.5m) calf was stranded in the Dee Estuary of Flintshire, and died two days later in June 2020.

Initial assessments have suggested the latest whale beaching was a female of almost 70ft (21m).

The whale’s carcass captured people’s attention on Cefn Sidan Sands in Pembrey on Wednesday.

Marine Environmental Monitoring staff were amazed by the size of the creature after visiting it at the beach on Wednesday morning.

The head was measured to be over 16ft (6m) in length, and around 8ft (2.5m) wide.

MEM stated: “Unfortunately, it had been dead for some time and as a result was in a bad state of decompsition.

“We believe that this one is a female but due to the state of decomposition we couldn’t confirm this.

“We have taken several samples from the whale which will be tested for various things including contaminates and to carry out genetics.”

Fin whales are reported to be increasingly returning to Welsh waters, according to Marine experts.

Sea Trust research suggests that every year pods swim off the Pembrokeshire coast.

Whales that have been stranded on the Welsh coast in past were found to be malnourished or affected by pollution like plastic waste.

This fin whale discovery at Cefn Sidan Sands was the second of the week.

A long-finned pilot whale was found washed up at Rhossili Bay beach on the Gower peninsula on Monday, September 1.

The pilot whale was still alive when spotted, and members of the public tried to get the whale back to sea.

It was, however, too heavy to move.

Coastguards and the British Divers Marine Rescue was alerted, but they were unable to get to the animal in time before it died.

This was a 9ft (2.7m) long young female long-finned pilot whale, known to reach over 6m in length when they grow up.

They can also live to 60 years.

The group added: “Pilot whales are social animals that live in large/social family units for their entire lives.

“Due to those social bonds, they are prone to mass strandings like the one that was seen last year in Scotland where 77 stranded together.

“We suspect that this one got separated from the family unit before finally ending up on the beach.”