VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — A young whale has washed up dead in Virginia. The Virginian-Pilot reported Thursday that the juvenile humpback came ashore on the north end of Virginia Beach. The spot is along the Atlantic Ocean and just south of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The whale may have been the same animal that someone spotted floating near the bay’s mouth earlier in the week. Alexander Costidis of the Virginia Aquarium said the whale was “pretty decomposed.” He said the whale was tossed around in the waves so much that there wasn’t much left inside the animal to test for a cause of death. But he said that a ship strike was unlikely. The mammal was 26 feet long and was probably between 1 and 3 years old.

A dead juvenile humpback whale washed up on Virginia Beach’s North End.https://t.co/hfUQ05aNBX

— The Virginian-Pilot (@virginianpilot) October 31, 2019

___ Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://pilotonline.com