Dead whale
© Jessica Pohl
Visitors to Ocean Loop at Sachuest on Tuesday morning discovered a small dead whale had washed ashore.

This is the second whale to wash ashore on the coast of Aquidneck Island in the last two months, in April a dead humpback whale washed ashore Hazard's Beach in Newport. There have also been reports of whales washing up on the shore of Long Island, Block Island and Cape Cod in recent weeks.

Folks on scene this morning at Sachuest believed the dead whale to be a small Minke Whale.

According to the American Cetacean Society, the minke whales is the smallest member of the rorqual family of whales (those whales with baleen, a dorsal fin, and throat pleats). Adult males average about 8 m (26 feet) with a maximum length of 9.4 m (31 feet), while adult females average 8.2 m (27 feet) with a maximum length of 10.2 m (33 feet). Both males and females weigh about 10 tons. Both sexes are slightly larger in the southern hemisphere.