An eight-foot dolphin carcass washed up on a Tayside beach on Tuesday.
The badly-decomposed creature, which was missing its tail and fins, was spotted on the coastline in Broughty Ferry.
The corpse was later buried on the beach by a disposal team from Dundee City Council.
The dolphin had been spotted floating in the water on Monday night by passers-by who initially thought it may have been a whale.
Scottish SPCA and the Coastwatch patrol attended the scene close to the Douglas Terrace junction with Westfield Road. One Douglas Terrace resident said the dolphin had drawn early-morning interest.
She said: ”A lot of cyclists pass this way on their way to work and they stopped to see what it was. I think they thought it was a whale at first.”
A JCB digger was brought from nearby Forthill Primary School to bury the dolphin. Council officials visited the site shortly after 10am to photograph and measure the creature.
It is understood that the Scottish Agricultural College in Inverness has requested photographs of the dolphin along with a DNA sample.
Gareth Norman, regional coordinator from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue for the Tay and Forth, said Scottish Strandings, which is based at the college, would have carried out a post-mortem if the dolphin had not been so badly decomposed
He said: ”Sometimes it’s because of a disease or a parasite, and of course they also die of natural causes, but I don’t think we will know what killed this dolphin.
”We have had a couple of porpoises washed up before and this is the second dolphin on the beach. We also often see dead seals.”
A police spokeswoman said: ”We received a call at around 9.30pm on Monday night to say that a marine animal was washed up on the beach and was decomposed. The council were contacted and they have disposed of it.”
A Dundee City Council spokesman said the carcass had been disposed of ”as quickly as possible”.
The death is the latest in a series of reported incidents of whales and dolphins being washed up on coastlines around Tayside and Fife.
In September a 40ft whale was washed up at Arbroath.
In the same month 17 pilot whales, including three calves, died after a 27-strong pod became beached on the rocks between Pittenweem and Anstruther. Ten whales were rescued and refloated by vets and volunteers.