A humpback whale traveled more than 8,000 miles — farther than the Earth’s diameter — in search of sex, a new study reveals.
The “unusual” odyssey, which spanned three oceans and five years, broke a record.
It is now the longest-known great-circle distance — the shortest path between two points on the Earth — traveled by a member of the species, according to a study published on Dec. 11 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Scientists were left wondering whether other factors besides mating, such as climate change, played a role in spurring this epic voyage.
An ‘unusual’ odyssey
An adult male humpback whale was photographed off the coast of Colombia in July 2013. It was spotted alongside a group of six other humpbacks and bottlenose dolphins, researchers said.
In August 2017, the same whale was then observed about 50 miles away — again with a group of other humpbacks.
Then, five years later, in August 2022, the whale was spotted on the other side of the globe.
It was seen with a group of five whales off the coast of Tanzania — 8,106 miles away from its previous sighting.
“This was a very exciting find, the kind of discovery where our first response was that there must be some error,” Ted Cheeseman, one of the study authors, told LiveScience.
Both the sightings off Colombia and Tanzania occurred in breeding grounds, indicating the purpose of the trip was to mate.
It’s not uncommon for humpbacks to travel long distances. In fact, they take part in “one of the longest known migrations of any mammal,” according to the study.
However, they typically only travel in a north-south direction — while east-west movement is considered abnormal.
“The long-distance movement presented here appears to be atypical and raises the question as to what its drivers are, which could include but not necessarily be limited to mating strategies,” researchers said.
It’s possible that climate change or varying environmental conditions also came into play, they added.
The study authors were: Ekaterina Kalashnikova, Natalia Botero-Acosta, Esteban Duque Mesa, Mar Palanca Gascón, Patrick Lyne, Cheeseman, Alex Vogel, Amy Kennedy and Aylin Akkaya.
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