A pair of mother-calf blue whales have been spotted off the Maharashtra coast. (Representational Image)
Researchers have spotted a pair of blue whales along Sindhudurg coast in Maharashtra, the first such sighting along the state coastline in a century.
It was a pair of mother-calf blue whales, N Vasudevan, Chief Conservator of Forest (Mangrove Cell) told PTI.
"This is the first time in over 100 years that whales have been spotted along Maharashtra's coast," he said.
"The last such spotting was recorded was in 1914," Mr Vasudevan said.
The whales were spotted recently by a group of researchers, 3 kms from the Sindhudurg coast between March and May. The researchers also spotted four Bryde's whales during the period.
The sightings were reported by the Cetacean Population Study team, deployed along the Sindhudurg cost for the past six months under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project on Mainstreaming Coastal and Marine Biodiversity and implemented by the Maharashtra State Mangrove Cell.
Under the UNDP project, the Cetacean Population Study team also sighted 687 dolphins, of which 153 individual dolphins were identified because of distinct features such as their fins.