A male humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) swam 13,046 km from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean to increase its mating opportunities, setting a new record for migration distance.
The whale’s journey is the longest recorded arc distance between two observations of this species. The arc distance is defined as the shortest path between two points on Earth measured on the surface of the planet’s sphere. Starting off the coast of Colombia in the eastern Pacific and ending off the coast of Zanzibar in the southwestern Indian Ocean, the whale’s journey spanned 13,046 km across the globe.
Humpback whales can grow up to 18 meters long and weigh 40 tons. (Photo: Mike Korostelev)
The humpback whale likely swam east from Colombia, riding the currents in the Southern Ocean and potentially encountering populations of whales in the Atlantic, according to Ted Cheeseman, a PhD candidate at Southern Cross University in Australia and director of Happywhale, the image database used by the research team to gather evidence.
“This is such an exciting discovery that our first reaction was to think there must be some error,” Cheeseman shared. Along with the astonishing distance, one of the most significant findings from the research is that the whale visited several humpback whale populations along the way.
Humpback whales typically follow a unified migration pattern, traveling between feeding grounds in colder waters near the poles and breeding areas in warmer tropical regions. They can swim over 8,000 km north-south each year, but they usually do not travel far east-west and do not mix with other populations.
The oceanic journey observed by the research team indicates that the migration behavior of humpback whales is more complex than previously thought. While scientists have occasionally noted similar migration patterns, such as a female humpback whale swimming 9,800 km from Brazil to Madagascar between 1999 and 2001, the male in this new study set the record for distance while moving from one breeding ground to another, according to lead researcher Ekaterina Kalashnikova, a biologist working with the Tanzania Whale Program and the Barazuto Scientific Research Center in Mozambique.
This discovery, published on December 10 in the journal Royal Society Open Science, is based on photographs taken by researchers from 2013 to 2022. The images showed the adult male whale appearing at two locations off the coast of Colombia and five years later in the Strait of Zanzibar, each time with a competitive group (including a female whale closely guarded by a dominant male and several other males attempting to approach her), according to Kalashnikova.
The motivation for the journey may be mating, as the male whale seeks to enhance its reproductive chances by mingling with members of other populations. Other reasons behind its unusual journey may be related to environmental changes affecting food distribution, climate change, and population growth leading to increased competition among males.
