A blue whale carcass washed up on the coast of Chile has become an unwitting backdrop for selfies and, unbelievably, a scrawling pad for graffiti.
One photo appears to show two women grinning and making peace signs with their fingers as they sit on top of the creature's dead body.
The 66ft (20m)-long whale created quite a talking point for locals when it washed up on the beach of Punta Arenas in the country's Magallanes Region.
However, after only a short time, people had started to take selfies next to the creature and someone had scrawled the message 'Ana, I love you' on the corpse.
Social media users have hit out at the 'vandals', calling for people to show the beast some respect.
Taking to social media, one user commented: "We are losing respect and empathy for everything today."
While another added: "So stupid, every day we get worse. How would the people who did this like to have their dead bodies written on? They do not respect anything!"
Meanwhile, a grey whale has been returned safely to the Pacific Ocean after three days beached on the coast of Mexico's Baja California Sur state.
The federal environmental protection agency said that the creature swam into a shallow canal near Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos late last week and was then stranded by the ebbing tide.
Workers then spent three weeks keeping the animal hydrated as it lay stranded, hosing it down with water and digging out the ground so that water could pool around it.
The reasons behind whales beaching themselves are still unclear, but some scientists believe it could be down to a combination of factors, with old, sick and injured whales being particularly vulnerable.
Navigational errors among pods of animals are also very common, especially when chasing food or coming close to shore to avoid predators.
Featured Image Credit: CENTopics: World News, Whale