The carcass of a finback whale washed up off the coast of southern Italy last week was "one of the largest" of its kind, the Italian Coast Guard said Wednesday.
Authorities found the carcass Sunday. It was towed to nearby Naples. The whale was about 65 feet long and weighed more than 77 metric tons.
A whale calf in distress led coast guard divers to the dead mammal off the harbor of Sorrento. Reports said the calf rammed its head into the harbor wall multiple times before it retreated.
Because of the size of the whale the rescue operation took three days, BBC News reported.
Finback whales are the second-biggest animals on Earth after the blue whale. Finbacks can grow as big as 85 feet and weigh up to 80 tons, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Threats to whales include entanglement in fishing nets, vessel strikes, lack of food as a result of overfishing and excessive ocean noise, according to the administration.
Authorities will display the whale's skeleton at a museum. The coast guard will track the whale calf.
There are currently an estimated 14,000 to 18,000 whales in the Pacific Ocean and roughly 82,000 can be found in the Southern Hemisphere.
The whales are classified as endangered as a result of commercial whaling.
