Local Community Advertising
UPDATE:
On Monday, May 15th, whale biologist, Alexander Werth identified the squid-like creature as a whale.
According to Werth, who is with the Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, the whale was likely several weeks or months into decomposing.
"It must stink to high heaven," Werth told Live Science.
As far as being able to identify the creature as a whale, Werth said, "the grooves, or throat pleats, and the upper jaw where the two racks of baleen plates, used for filtering out food in the whale's mouth, would have been."
Moe Flannery also weighed in on the whale species. Flannery is the collections manager in ornithology and mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences. Flannery said the whale is definitely not a humpback.
Most scientists agree the whale belongs to the genus Balaenoptera, but it's unclear which species it is - either a blue whale, fin whale or Bryde's whale.
"There's lots of stuff in the ocean that we don't know about - but there's nothing that big," said Werth to Live Science.
As far as the cause of death, it remains a mystery.
While most dead whales sink in cold waters, the floating whale carcass may have been moved by tides and could have been struck by something like a large, passing ship.
However, more will be determined by tissue samples.
ORIGINAL STORY:
A mysterious giant squid-like creature washed up on shore earlier this week.
The dead creature was found beached on Seram Island in the Maluku province in Indonesia.
After several days of washing up on shore, the creature is starting to decay.
@nicktheandersen Giant Squid? Whatever it is, it's decomposing and fouling the water and why are people in the water with it. pic.twitter.com/LEA99oz18y
— UpsideDownyJunior (@msamson56) May 13, 2017
Local Community Advertising