| Summary: | On 2006, the Italian Large Cetacean Necropsy Team, funded from the Italian Ministry of the Environment within the ACCOBAMS agreement, performed the post-mortem examination of two animals stranded along Italian coastlines. The first intervention was an unidentified, badly preserved beaked whale carcass. On the second animal, a young male fin whale, 5.40 mt long in lenght, a complete necropsy was carried out one day after stranding. Main gross findings were granulomatous parasitic myocarditis, parasite cysts in urinary bladder ligaments and a large haemorrhagic area on the soft tissue of the dorsal neck region. Cardiac failure due to parasitic granulomas was the likely cause of death.
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