The bloated, lifeless body of a massive whale discovered floating near the southern coast of Naples in the dead of night Italian coastguards, scuba divers found the carcass on Sunday after spotting a calf in difficulty near the harbor of Sorrento.

The body subsequently surfaced and was closely monitored by the Coast Guard, who decided to carry out an operation to move it to land.

The coast Guard members arrived at shore on Wednesday and a postmortem will be carried out to investigate the mammals cause of death.

The whale's skeleton will eventually be put on display in a museum, and coast Guard members will continue to monitor for any more sightings of the calf.