AssetID: 55726938
Headline: Half the world a whale! Humpbacks found making record-breaking migrations from Australia to Brazil
Caption: Half the world a whale! Humpbacks found making record-breaking migrations from Australia to Brazil. Humpback whales have been making record-breaking treks between breeding grounds in Australia and Brazil, according to scientists. The whales were recorded for the first time crossing more than 15,000km (9,320 miles) of open ocean. Researchers said the findings represented the greatest distances ever confirmed between sightings of individual humpback whales anywhere in the world. The international team identified two whales that had been photographed in both eastern Australia and Brazil by comparing tens of thousands of images of whale tails, known as flukes. One whale was first photographed in Hervey Bay, Queensland, in 2007 and again in the same area in 2013 before later being recorded off the coast of São Paulo in Brazil in 2019. Researchers said the two breeding grounds were separated by a minimum straight-line ocean distance of about 14,200km (8,820 miles), roughly equivalent to the distance between Sydney and London. Because scientists only documented the beginning and end points of the journey, the whale’s precise migration route remains unknown. A second whale was first photographed in 2003 at Abrolhos Bank, off the coast of Bahia in Brazil, an important humpback whale nursery area. More than two decades later, in September 2025, the same whale was spotted alone in Hervey Bay, representing a documented travel distance of 15,100km (9,380 miles). Researchers said this was the longest distance ever recorded between sightings of the same humpback whale. The researchers said such crossings appeared to be exceptionally rare - but are important to the health of whale populations, due to exchanges of genes between separate groups.
Keywords: Natural World,whale,humpbacks,record-breaking,migration,Australia,Brazil,breeding grounds,scientists,ocean,distances,whales,tails,Hervey Bay,Queensland,São Paulo,journey,coast,Bahia,researchers,populations,group,habitat
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