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© MERR Institute A dead pygmy sperm whale washed onto the beach at Delaware Seashore State Park on Sunday.
A dying 10-foot long, 800-pound pygmy sperm whale washed up at Delaware Seashore State Park on Sunday and no one is sure, just yet, why the animal died.

"He appeared to be a fairly robust animal with what looked like what might have been a previous entanglement around his tail," said Suzanne Thurman, executive director of the Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

"He did have a fairly heavy parasite load in his GI tract, which is indicative of poor health."

But it's unknown whether additional testing on the animal to determine the cause will be done. Thurman said they collected samples and preserved them, but they have no money to send them off for testing.

They reported the stranding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been tracking a large scale dolphin die-off along the Atlantic Coast over the last year.

If the federal agency seeks samples, Thurman said MERR will provide them for testing. The dolphin die-off, which also impacted some whales, has been linked to morbillivirus.

Thurman, along with a team of 10 volunteers, worked to keep onlookers away from the stranding area between Conquest Road and the Life Saving Station to perform an animal necropsy, the first step in figuring out how the whale died.

From the outside, the whale appeared healthy. Thurman said that is unusual because in the past, pigmy sperm whales that have stranded along the Delaware coast, are emaciated.

Once the whale was opened up, though, it was loaded with parasites both in its stomach and its blubber, she said. There was some food in the stomach, though not much, she said.

Pygmy sperm whales are found throughout tropical and temperate waters in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and it is not unusual to see them off the Delaware coast, especially far offshore.

Unlike larger baleen whales, pygmy sperm whales have teeth. They use the hook-like lower teeth to spear squid, an important part of their diet.

The last pygmy sperm whale stranding in Delaware was last May when a pregnant female stranded on the beach at Cape Shores. Prior to that, there was a female and full term fetus in 2007 and a mother and calf in 2006, she said.