You might have come across stories of people flying long distances for their love. But this case of a whale swimming thousands of kilometres together likely to find a mate is going viral on the internet. It has been reported that a male humpback whale which was earlier sighted in 2013 around the Pacific Ocean coast in Colombia, recently appeared near Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, having swam 13,046 kms during the years.
Long journey from 2013 to 2022 sets record
Now, this whale has set a stunning record for its long travel across the oceans and covering a distance of over 13,000 kms from 2013 to 2022, when it was last spotted in Zanzibar, Africa.
Details about humpback whale and recent whale's swim
A new study stated this whale's journey is the longest migration recorded for a single whale. According to reports, this whale's travel was said to be the "first documentation of an adult male humpback traveling between the Pacific and Indian oceans".
The study pointed out that "Humpback whales undertake one of the longest known migrations of any mammal".
All you need to know about new study on humpwhale
"This is the longest documented great-circle distance between sightings on wintering grounds of two different ocean basins of an adult male humpback whale, involving two breeding stocks in the eastern Pacific (stock G) and southwest Indian Ocean (stock C). These two stocks are separated by a minimum of 120° longitude, and a great-circle distance of 13 046 km", the study report read further sharing details about this record-setting swim of the humpback whale.
While the exact reason of the whale's travel is unknown, it is being said that aquatic life might have undergone an extraordinary journey in search of a mate.
Similar incident
It was learned that a similar incident involving female humpback whale surfaced in late 90s.
A study listed down the previous case of the species travelling long distance and wrote, "For instance, a female humpback whale was photographed in the breeding ground off Ecuador in 1996 and later photo-identified in the non-adjacent breeding ground off Brazil in 1998, representing discrete stocks G and A, and an estimated distance of 12 000 km".
