A dead whale believed to be a Minkie has washed up on an Angus beach.
The whale was first spotted by locals at West Links Beach on the Arbroath shoreline on Saturday.
It’s unclear what caused the whale’s death.
Arbroath local Jimmy Morris was out on a walk with his dog when he found the washed-up whale.
He told The Courier: “l was walking my dog along the beach today around 12:15pm and found it lying there.
“It was clearly not long dead as there was still fresh blood running out onto the sand from its head area.
“I can only guess that it had been smashed up against the rocks at some point recently.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) said: “We were first made aware of the stranding just before 12pm today.
“We believe that it is a Minkie whale, however, it is too decomposed to know for certain.
“Unfortunately, this means we will not be collecting any samples from the whale.
“We would like to thank everyone for reporting the whale today and would encourage anyone to report stranded whales, dolphins or seals to SMASS as early as possible.”
Minke whales are most commonly spotted along the Scottish coastline and can reach up to nine metres in length.
The stranding comes just hours after Angus was battered by Storm Babet with some areas experiencing nearly half of their annual total rainfall in 36 hours.
