The carcass was in an advanced stage of decomposition. - Photo: LEE KONG CHIAN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, NUS
SINGAPORE: The 6.3m-long carcass of a baleen whale was found in the waters off Tanjong Pagar on Sept 6.
Announcing the discovery in a statement on Tuesday (Sept 16), the NUS Lee Kong Chian National History Museum said the cause of the whale’s death is unclear.
The carcass was in an advanced stage of decomposition, and research is underway to find out more about the animal, said the museum’s curator of mammals Marcus Chua.
The incomplete specimen is identified as a rorqual whale Balaenoptera sp., a group of filter-feeding baleen whales that includes the world’s largest whale, the blue whale.
The carcass is estimated to weigh about six tonnes, according to the museum.
Officers from the National Parks Board (NParks) had alerted the museum researchers to the carcass, which had half its body missing. The museum’s scientists estimate that it would have been 9m to 12m long when it was alive and well.
While preparations were ongoing, the whale’s “delicate carcass” was reported on Sept 12 to have drifted towards the Marina Bay Cruise Centre.
To prevent it from being lost to the open sea, museum staff worked with Singapore Salvage Engineers to secure the remains.
Museum staff worked with Singapore Salvage Engineers to secure the remains. - Photo: LEE KONG CHIAN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, NUS
It is now safely secured in a restricted area for processing and further study by a team led by Dr Chua.
“Whale encounters in Singapore waters are rare. Hence, each stranding provides unique opportunities to study these large marine mammals,” he said.
The whale’s age and sex have yet to be determined, but tissue samples have been collected for future genetic analysis.
The museum said it will share the dissection process and subsequent findings with the public when ready.
Baleen whales are characterised by the lack of teeth, and the presence of baleen plates in their upper jaws, which filter zooplankton and other small prey from the water.
They range from the 6.5m-long pygmy whale to the 30m-long blue whale, the world’s biggest whale.
Although the group of whales is seldom seen in Singapore waters, they have been recorded before, with carcasses observed off Pulau Bukom in 1980 and in the South China Sea near Pedra Branca in 2009.
Many species of baleen whales undertake long annual migrations between polar feeding grounds and tropical breeding areas, making them widespread across the world’s oceans, according to the museum.
The discovery also marks a decade since the museum has encountered and studied a whale carcass found in Singapore waters.
Months after the museum opened in 2015, the carcass of a sperm whale, later named Jubi Lee, washed up near Jurong Island.
The NUS Lee Kong Chian National History Museum said the cause of the whale’s death is unclear. - Photo: LEE KONG CHIAN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, NUS
Head of the museum Darren Yeo said: “It is both moving and serendipitous that another whale carcass should arrive in our waters during our 10th anniversary year - exactly 10 years after the museum’s launch and the discovery of Jubi Lee - just as we have been reflecting on a decade of research, public engagement, and conservation.”
The 2015 specimen, which measures 10.6m in length, is now displayed at the museum.
The female whale represented the first record of a sperm whale in Singapore and confirmed record of the species in coastal waters around Peninsular Malaysia.
Its carcass suggests that it could have originated from a population in the Indian Ocean near the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in Australia, or Western Indonesia.
The whale’s gut revealed a wide variety of deep-sea prey, which suggested that it was feeding well outside Singapore waters before it had likely died from a ship strike, as indicated by a large wound with broken backbones.
The 2025 baleen whale find echoes an earlier chapter of Singapore’s natural history, when the skeleton of another baleen whale was displayed here, the museum noted.
The Raffles Museum at Stamford Road, now the National Museum of Singapore, displayed the skeleton of a 13.4m-long blue whale skeleton that had been stranded near Malacca in 1892.
The skeleton, once dubbed the Singapore Whale, was exhibited here from 1907 to 1974, before it was gifted to the National Museum of Malaysia.
It can be found today at the Labuan Marine Museum in Malaysia. - The Straits Times/ANN
