Humpback whale makes record journey of more than 13,000km from South America to Africa

Research done with the help of citizen science shows male humpback completed almost twice the typical migration distance

A humpback whale has journeyed more than 13,000km from South America to Africa, which researchers say is the longest distance ever recorded for an individual whale.

New research published in Royal Society Open Science recorded sightings of a male humpback whale, initially spotted near the coast of Colombia and recorded nearly a decade later near Zanzibar, Africa.

Co-author Ted Cheeseman, a whale biologist based at Southern Cross University, said the distance travelled was unusual – almost twice the typical migration – and suggesting the whale ended up way out of its usual range and population group.

Researchers were unsure how the whale may have been received, he said. “When he showed up, was it like, ‘Oooh, sexy foreigner with a cool accent’?”

The discovery was made possible by Happywhale, a platform Cheeseman co-founded, which enabled researchers, citizen scientists and whale watchers to record sightings and then identify individual whales by their flukes, using a modified form of facial recognition.

A whale’s tail, or “flukeprint”, is as unique and identifiable as a fingerprint. “It’s like a five-metre banner of their ID,” Cheeseman said, pointing out that each has its own different patterns, pigmentation and scars.

Whale scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta, who was not involved with the research, said it was a “brilliant example” of combining citizen science and technology to “take a single day of whale watching and turn it into something remarkable”.

There was a lot that was still not known about whales, Pirotta said. “It’s always so refreshingly wonderful, especially in my career, to hear these fascinating stories documented in the scientific literature.”

Pirotta is the author of Humpback Highway, a book taking its title from local whale populations’ migratory route along Australia’s east and west coasts. “They come to Australian waters generally to breed or give birth. And then they’ll return and migrate south to the southern waters to feed,” she said.

Her own research, tracking an all-white humpback called Migaloo, showed whales often do not “stick to the script”. Sometimes, instead of heading up Australia’s east coast, Migaloo crossed “the ditch” and went across to New Zealand instead.

Researchers did not yet know whether new technology was revealing more about existing whale movements, or whether the unusual patterns reflected a changing environment due to climate change.

“We are learning way more because we have the tools in place,” Pirotta said.

“As a world we are way more connected, and that means that the stories that we can tell about whales are more connected globally than ever before.”

Cover photo: A whale’s tail, or ‘flukeprint’, is as unique and identifiable as a fingerprint and was key to identifying the whale in question. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images