Budhdist monks perform religious rituals for a 40ft long whale which washed up on the coast of Thailand.
The 15 tonne carcass emerged from the Gulf of Thailand in Samut Prakan, 30km south of Bangkok on Sunday (January 26).
Researchers identified it as a six-year-old femaleBryde's whale, or Bruda whale, which had been dead for around five days before it surfaced in mangrove forest in the Bang Poo district.
Four monks from the Wat Tamru temple performed traditional Buddhist rites for the dead whale on Monday (January 27).
While in the afternoon, staff from the Marine and Coastal Resources Department performed an autopsy on the carcass to find the cause of death.
Meat was stripped from the whale's skeleton and placed on a canvas sheet. They will then try to identify from the whale's DNA if it was from a family of 50 similar whales in the Gulf of Thailand.
Chalatip Chanchompu, director of the country's sea research centre, said the whale had no signs of major external injuries but its second right rib bone was broken.
There was also a bruise on the right side of the chin area, which they believe came from an impact before the whale died.
The scientists will keep the whale's bones for educational purposes.
Chalatip said: "The whale's body will be buried but we will gather her bones and keep them for research at the centre. The tissue will decompose in around two years."
