Dead Sperm Whale Explodes After Biologist Cuts Open Carcass [VIDEO]

A video showing a dead sperm whale exploding in the face of a biologist who was trying to cut open its stomach has gone viral.

This shocking video of the whale exploding its guts out was caught on camera by the Faroese Broadcasting Corporation.

The biologist Bjarni Mikklesen at the National museum of Faroe Island undertook the grim task of cutting open the carcass of the whale, with the aim of retrieving the skeleton of the whale and housing it in a Danish museum. As the cutting tool hit the gas pocket in the whale's blubber, with a loud bag, the whale spewed its guts and internal organs into the air, reports the Huffington Post.

The 45ft-whale was one of the two whales that died early this week after being trapped in a narrow channel near Faroe Island, in the North Atlantic. Sources suggest that the whale died due to natural cause. In the video, we can see Mikkelsen is a bit hesitant about cutting the whale, apparently this was the first time he was cutting open a whale carcass.

Mikkelsen says that the gut bursting might have been due to accumulation of a mixture of gases within the corpse especially methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide formed due to the putrefaction process.

"The animal was more than two days old when we took it so we knew there would be some pressure on the inside, but nothing like what happened," Mikkelsen told Mail Online. "We couldn't imagine it would happen like that so it was a little bit more of a surprise. It wasn't a shock. We had expected something. In the situation I was more worried about something worse happening or anyone getting hurt."

This unprecedented footage was uploaded by marine biologist Johan Johanse under 'Sperm Whale Explodes'. Till the now this video has attracted more than 2,660,000 views.