IT HAD looked like an ignominious end for the sei whale that washed up in West Fife recently, with the carcass dumped at a landfill site, but it turns out the skeleton could go on display for millions of visitors to see in Edinburgh.

After the poor creature died on the shore at Dalgety Bay, it was towed along the coast to Burntisland and then taken by road to Fife Council's recycling centre north of Wellwood, where a source confided to the Press the rotting remains would be buried "deep down".

But that's not the end of the tale as it's transpired that, before it disappeared under piles of household rubbish that can't be recycled, experts from the National Museum of Scotland had a few bones to pick with the whale.

A spokesperson confirmed: "If there is a report of a stranding we will often be called out by the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS).

"Some of the whale will be in landfill but we collected the skeleton and some tissue samples and these will be added to our research collection.

"We have one of the largest marine mammal collections in the world, at the National Museum collection centre in Granton, and it's possible it will go on display at some future date."

The sei whale is something of a curiosity as, although the Forth is visited regularly by minke whales, humpback whales, porpoises, seals and dolphins, it is seen in Scottish waters rarely.

When it washed up on the cove below Lumsdaine Drive in Dalgety Bay on November 11, it was just the third record of the species stranding in this country after incidents at the Isle of Lewis in 1990 and in 2012 at Angus.

An internationally-protected mammal, it is one of the fastest whales, reaching speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.

The sei whale that was found in Dalgety Bay was 12 metres long and weighed around 15 tons.

At Burntisland harbour, heavy plant machinery was needed to lift the carcass into containers for the journey to Dunfermline's recycling centre at Lochhead.

A request to recover the whale for a necropsy – post-mortem – was made by SMASS but the results, which should help experts understand why it stranded, are not known yet.

The National Museum of Scotland already has more than 3,500 specimens in their marine mammal collection, including large baleen and toothed whales. Much of it has been built up in the last 30 years as a result of the UK strandings schemes.