Humpback Whale Spotted Attending Dead Calf in Rare Sighting
Marine researchers have documented what may be a case of mourning in humpback whales after observing a female tending to a dead newborn calf. The encounter, described by marine biologist Olaf Meynecke and rescue boat captain Andrew Mulville, was published September 16 in Discover Animals.
While toothed whales such as orcas have been known to keep dead calves with them for extended periods, even carrying them at the surface for days, such behaviour is seldom observed among baleen whales. The authors suggest this is because newborn baleen whales lack the fat stores that would make a carcass buoyant. If mothers remain with dead calves on the seafloor, the chances of humans witnessing the interaction are extremely low. According to the researchers, this is the first detailed account of a humpback attending to a calf after death.
In July 2025, Mulville, who works for the Australian marine animal rescue group Sea World Foundation, noticed two adult humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the water off Palm Beach in Queensland, Australia, and approached to investigate. As he drew closer, he saw tissue floating on the surface that resembled amniotic membrane — the placental lining whales release into the water during birth.
On the seafloor, he could make out a small newborn calf, less than four meters long. The female "ended up diving down, making eye contact and actually putting her pectoral fin — her arm — over the stillborn and resting next to it," said Meynecke, who is from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
Two adult whales, believed by the researchers to be the calf's mother and her male escort, remained in the same area for two more days. "We can't prove it, but I'm very certain they were the same whales, which also suggests that this is a prolonged change of behavior … something that we might call mourning or a form of grieving," Meynecke said.
"It was pretty emotional to observe," Meynecke added, but he cautioned against anthropomorphizing and drawing direct parallels to humans. He noted that "the whale is experiencing their world in a completely different form and shape" and that "they have different ways of understanding their environment."
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