The dead finback whale which was brought into Rotterdam port on a container ship on Tuesday was probably alive when it was hit, researchers from Utrecht University say.

The seven-metre whale was attached to the front of the 340-metre ship for up to five days before it was spotted by the port’s harbour master.
The ship was on its way from the Far East to Rotterdam and probably hit the one-year-old mammal in the Atlantic Ocean, close to Spain or Portugal, the researchers said.
Parts of its skeleton will go on show at the Naturalis natural history museum in Leiden.
Port authority spokesman Sjaak Poppe told Nos television that he had never come across anything like it before. ‘Hitting a whale is one thing, but it is extraordinary that it remained hanging on the ship,’ he said.