Australian whale A humpback calf and an adult southern right whale were recently spot swimming together. Young whales may have been adopt by larger whales after their biological mothers dies, experts say.
A young humpback whale has been sight traveling alongside a southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) in Australia (Megaptera novaeangliae).
The adult right whale may be acting as the unrelated youngster’s surrogate mother in an exceedingly uncommon instance of inter species adoption, according to experts.
Photographer Jess Wohling Australian whale
who is located in Esperanza, Western Australia, was able to film the strange couple swimming off a local beach while using a drone. But it wasn’t until she watched the video again that she noticed the calf was not the same species as the adult it was swimming with.
Waring forwarded the video to Katie Fanny, a researcher at Australia’s Little White Whale Project, who is monitoring southern right whales nearby. The photo blew Fanny.
She texted everyone she knew, according to ABC News. Many whale researchers who had more years of experience than me were friends and colleagues of mine, and they were all very frightened, too.
Fanay believes that adult right whales could be surrogate mothers for juvenile humpback whales, and the footage is the first evidence that the two species can form such a relationship. “I’m pretty sure it’s most likely some sort of adoption,”
he said Fannei.The closeness of adults and calves swimming side by side in the video is about the same as the closeness that related mother-calf pairs exhibit when traveling together
UK Whale and Dolphin Conservation Research Fellow and author of The Encyclopedia of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises (Firefly Books, 2017) tells Live Science In an email that this could be an inter species adoption.
It would be “extremely rare”, but “not impossible”
