Davide Bedocchi. CETUS Cetacean Research Centre. Viareggio (LU) – Italy. Dear Colleagues, this message is to inform you about the extraordinary sighting of Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Mediterranean Sea. Here below some informations regarding this important sighting for OTC (Cetacean Tuscan Observatory): Date: 27 August 2010 Hour: 17.00 to 20.00 Position: 1 Km West from Viareggio (Tuscany - Italy). Bathymetry: +- 12 meters. Our research catamaran Krill together with the Viareggio CoastGuard followed the Humpback Whale, straordinary species inside the Mediterranean Sea, during the swimming and breaching activity of the animal for about three hours. At the end of the sighting the animal was swimming with a southward direction along the coastline. In the last two hundred years we had in the Mediterranean Sea only thirteen sightings of Humpback Whale. The last well documented sightings: 2002 Trieste and Senigallia (Italy), 2004 Siracusa (Italy), 2009 Trieste and now Viareggio (Italy). It could be very interesting to match data of the previous sightings to understand if the sighted animal could be the same in the last years or if we are in presence of different animals. Pls contact us at cetus@supereva.it or bedocchid@yahoo.it to request images of the whale or to share data to investigate together. Sincerely, Davide Bedocchi Davide Bedocchi - Naturalist CE.TU.S. Director CE.TU.S. - Cetacean Research Centre Via Degli Ontani 60, 55049 Viareggio (LU) Italy e-mail: bedocchid@yahoo.it Mobile: +39 3287524380 www.cetusresearch.org