A male humpback has set a record for the longest migration between feeding and breeding grounds in different oceans, travelling more than 13,000 kilometres between South America and Africa.
Authors of a new study published by the London-based Royal Society found that the whale had migrated 13,046km over almost a decade.
The marine animal was first spotted in the Gulf of Tribugá in the northern Pacific Ocean off the western coast of Colombia's Chocó region in June 2013.
Four years later, the whale had moved north and was spotted in waters off the Colombian town of Bahia Solano, also in the Chocó region, in August 2017.
[Whale map]It took another five years for the humpback to be seen publicly again.
In August 2022, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Tanzanian archipelago, near Zanzibar, it was spotted and identified by its unique patterning on the underside of its tail.
"This represents the longest recorded great-circle distance between sightings on two breeding grounds of a photo-identified adult male humpback whale," the study said.
"The first record of a humpback whale alternating breeding grounds between the Pacific and Indian Oceans."
The study relied on public sightings of the whales, which were documented on the open source tracking website Happywhale.
While there is no definitive conclusion for why the whale might have travelled so far, the study's researchers found that the animal had been spotted among competitive groups of other humpbacks in the ocean off Colombia.
Male humpback whales are known to travel between feeding grounds, driven by their natural dominance and breeding instincts, according to the study.
"Other reasons behind this unusual new habitat exploration may be global climatic changes and altered environmental conditions and events," researchers said in the report.
"Krill distribution in the Southern Ocean fluctuates yearly, impacting humpback whale distribution on the feeding grounds."
Humpback whale migrations typically exceed 8,000km in distance, however they are known to stick to consistent feeding destinations rather than travelling to waters unknown to them.
In Australia, humpback whales migrate annually between April and November by moving up to 10,000km between Antarctic and sub-tropical waters along the nation's eastern coastline.
"The exact timing of the migration period can vary from year to year depending on water temperature, sea ice, predation risk, prey abundance and the location of their feeding ground," the federal government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water said.
Until another public sighting of the male humpback recorded off the African coastline is logged, his whereabouts and next migration destination will remain unknown.
