Interspecies Adoption Shocks Authorities
Drone photographer Jess Wohling captured a most unusual image off the coast of Western Australia last week: an adult southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) swimming alongside a juvenile humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).
“I was like, ‘surely this can't be right,’” Wohling told ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). “So I Googled humpbacks and noticed the pectoral fins were quite long on the little calf. I got pretty excited.”
Wohling then sent her pics to whale researcher Katy Fannei, who confirmed the animals are of different species and was equally excited by the odd pairing. “I'm friends or colleagues with a lot of whale researchers who have way more years of experience than I have,” she said, “and all of them were really surprised as well.”
Fannei noted that these different species rarely are seen in proximity to one another. She’s now looking through an immense database of southern right whales to see if she can find another sighting of the adult. “I think it can certainly be the most likely case that it's kind of an adoption,” she said. “I never thought I would see that in my life.”
Interspecies adoptions are rare but not unprecedented. In 2018, researchers in Canada spotted a juvenile narwhal living among beluga whales, and in 2013 a pod of sperm whales in the Azores were observed to adopt a wayward bottlenose dolphin that appeared to have spinal deformities.
Photo credit: Jess Wohling / LiveScience
