Extremely rare white humpback whale washes up dead on Australian beach

A whale washed up on a beach in Australia.

A strange corpse was found by a local resident as he was kayaking past a remote beach. The juvenile female was 33 feet 10 meters long and was confirmed to be the long-necked Humpback. It had a marble-like appearance and was pure white. I thought it looked like a sculpture.

Experts don't think the dead whale is an Albino. The whale was not completely white and officers from Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning went to the remote beach to check it out. "From what they've been able to see on the whale itself, there is evidence of patches of dark-colored skin on the whale," said Peter Brick, regional agency commander for DELWP in the area. Albinism is a genetic condition that makes it impossible for animals to produce any of the melanin, which makes up the color of skin, feathers and eyes.

There is a real-life man spotted off the coast of Jamaica.

Leucism is a genetic condition similar to albinism that affects some individual cells and can cause patchy discoloration. Wildlife officers sent tissue samples from the whale to Museums Victoria in order to confirm the condition.

There is a chance that the whale's skin fell off as the body rotted. This can happen due to sun exposure and the lapping of the waves as dead whales float on the surface. It appears to be a white whale, she said.

When the carcass of a whale was found, some people thought the animal was that of a famous male whale in Australia. For the past two years, no one has seen him. The whale's size, sex and lack of albinism made it impossible for it to be Migaloo. The language of the aboriginal community that lives near where the whale was found is called "Migaloo".

In April, a juvenile white whale was spotted swimming with dolphins in New South Wales, and it was suggested that he was leucistic and not albino. There is no evidence that this whale is the same whale as the one that died on the beach.

It's not clear why the whale died, but it probably died before it washed up. The most likely cause of death was a vessel strike, according to a marine ecologist. There would be damage to the upper side of the body if it had been hit by a ship.

Franklin said that the whale could have been killed by disease.

The DELWP decided to leave the corpse on the beach in order to prevent bad smells or scavengers from bothering the locals.

It was originally published on Live Science