A group of researchers claimed to have spotted a mother-calf pair of blue whales off the Sindhudurg coast in Maharashtra after nearly 100 years between March and May.
The Cetacean Population Study team also sighted four Bryde’s whales.
The team had on March 28 sighted a mother-calf pair of blue whales near Kunkeshwar, 2.7km offshore at a depth of 16 metres.
According to N Vasudevan, chief conservator of forest, Maharshtra state mangrove cell, the last reported sighting of blue whale, the world’s largest animal, was in 1914.
The team also reportedly spotted a small pod of four Bryde’s whales four times – April 11, 16, 30 and May 6, from the coast at an average water depth of 15 metres.
Under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project, the team was deployed along the Sindhudurg cost for the past six months.
The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales (Mysticeti).
At 30 meters (98 feet) in lenght and 180 tonnes or more in weight, it is also the largest existing animal and the heaviest that has ever existed on earth.
