Sei Whale Skeleton (Los Silos)

On the shore of Los Silos, next to the Charco de los Chochos, the real skeleton of a sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis), a large Atlantic cetacean, is on display. Set outdoors along the coastal promenade, it lets visitors appreciate the animal's scale up close and serves as an educational feature about the marine fauna of the Canaries.

The bones, recovered from the beaches and later restored and treated, were put on display as part of the «Esculturas de la naturaleza» project, the first of its kind in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The aim was both to improve the look of the spot and to serve as an educational resource and a call for environmental awareness, in homage to the oceans and the cetaceans of the Canary Islands. The sei whale is a species that usually exceeds 16 metres in length and 20 tonnes in weight, so the mounted skeleton gives a sense of that scale right by the shore.

The skeleton belongs to a female sei whale that stranded on the coast of Telde, Gran Canaria, in March 2007, and it has been on display here since 2008; it measures just over 14 metres. It is one of the few complete skeletons of the species shown outdoors in Europe. Despite restorations in 2015 and 2019, sun, salt and wind keep damaging the bones, so the Cabildo de Tenerife has granted the town council more than 126,000 euros to replace it with a high-fidelity replica, made from a 3D scan in reinforced resins and stainless steel. The original will be removed for conservation and later shown in a museum or interpretation centre. No date for the swap has been announced yet.