8:36am UK, Saturday July 12, 2003

A giant blob of rotting flesh found on a Chilean beach was a sperm whale - not a giant octopus, scientists have said.

All kinds of explanations were banded about to explain the mystery of the 40ft mound gelatinous tissue washed up on the remote beach.

180 possible giant octopus?Chilean scientists

'Blob' had baffled scientists

Some had speculated it might have been some form of sea monster or giant squid.

But researchers at the Museum of Natural History in Santiago needed just a few days to put the dampeners on the fanciful theories.

"It has not been necessary to do DNA analysis in order to obtain identification, it was enough to find the dermal glands that belong only to this group," scientists Sergio Letelier and Jose Yanez said in a statement.

When a sperm whale dies at sea, it rots until it becomes a "skeleton suspended in a semi-liquid mass within a bag of skin and blubber," the scientists said.

Eventually, the skin tears and the bones sinks while the skin and blubber float.

"This washes up and has the appearance of an octopus because the spermaceti organ keeps its bulky shape," they added.