Scientists have spotted for the first time a female humpback whale seemingly mourning after giving birth to a dead calf.
Their latest research documents a female humpback whale and an escort whale off the southern Gold Coast in Queensland in 2025.
The presumed mother whale remained with a deceased calf for several hours, and possibly even days, after it was stillborn.
This kind of attentive behaviour towards deceased individuals has only been observed previously amongst toothed whales and in the dolphin family, and is absent from research on baleen whales like the humpbacks, scientists from Griffith University said.
"Unlike reports of toothed whales where mothers have been observed lifting their dead calves to the surface, this humpback whale mother showed prolonged post-mortem behaviour and attention towards her deceased calf under the surface,” said Olaf Meynecke, an author of the study published in the journal Discover Animals.
“She remained close to the calf, maintaining eye contact and positioning herself next to her calf over several hours and maybe even days,” Dr Meynecke said.
During the 2025 encounter, the two adult humpbacks were observed swimming to the surface of the water frequently, about 1km from the Gold Coast shore.
They exhibited no aggressive behaviours, such as rapid movements or chasing.
“The slightly larger individual, later identified as the presumed mother, remained at the surface in a resting posture, arching her back before undertaking short dives lasting less than two minutes,” researchers wrote.
“After each dive she resurfaced at approximately the same location,” they wrote.
Then footage obtained from a GoPro camera indicated that a whale amniotic membrane was released about 30 minutes later, which was subsequently observed floating at the surface.
Footage also showed a small calf lying on the sea floor.
“The presumed mother approached alongside her stillborn, touching it with her head and pectoral fin as well as remaining still and eye to eye next to the stillborn for at least one min at a time,” researchers wrote.
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This observed behaviour is consistent with care-giving or nurturing actions documented in socially complex mammals, scientists say.
It adds to the limited current understanding of the cognitive and emotional dimensions of death-related responses in whales, researchers say.
The observation also reflects an inherent, “strong maternal attachment to the calf,” they say.
“When I actually worked out what was happening, I was totally surprised,” said Andrew Mulville, a rescue boat captain at the Sea World Foundation.
“At first sight, I thought it was just two whales resting on the surface, but their behaviour was unusual,” Mr Mulville said, adding, “It was definitely not what I was expecting to see out at sea that day”.
