A humpback whale has set a new record for the longest-distance breeding species on a third marathon trip around the world.
In July 2013, adult male humpbacks were first spotted by whale watchers at a breeding ground off the coast of Colombia on South America’s west coast.
But in 2022 the creature shocked ocean experts when it turned up off the east coast of Africa in Tanzania’s Zanzibar – 13,000km as the crow flies but far from ocean passageways.
Humpbacks are migratory animals that make annual trips of up to 8000 km towards the poles to feed in the summer before returning to their breeding grounds for the winter.
However, they usually follow the same routes each year and return to known haunts, such that traveling in an east-west direction is considered extremely rare.
Previously, the longest recorded migration in terms of longitudinal distance was a female humpback previously seen in 2022 at a feeding ground off the Antarctic Peninsula, turning beyond Byron Bay, New South Wales.
