A whale that died after being beached in the Canary Islands had half a million euro "treasure" in its intestine.

The discovery was made during the autopsy to understand the causes of the death of the animal - a large sperm whale - found lifeless on the coast of Nogales, in La Palma , in the month of June.

The examination, conducted by Antonio Fernandez Rodriguez , head of the animal health and food safety institute of the University of Las Palmas, made it possible to find a block of ambergris weighing almost 10 kg in the intestine of the cetacean. And worth 500,000 euros.

Ambergris is actually produced by the intestines of whales, which thus metabolize the large amount of squid and cuttlefish they ingest. In most cases the blocks of ambergris are expelled by sperm whales (the ambergris is in fact found in the open sea). In this case, however, the blockage remained in the animal's entrails, causing it to have a digestive problem that was fatal .

Now the valuable "material" (to the point that many countries have banned it to prevent whaling) will be put up for sale and the funds raised will be used for reconstruction projects in the Canary Islands devastated by the last eruption of the La Palma volcano .

(Unioneonline/lf)

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