In an extraordinary first-of-its-kind video, researchers have documented a humpback whale mom grieving her stillborn calf.
The footage was recorded off the coast of southeastern Australia in July 2025, according to a study published Wednesday (Sept. 16) in the journal Discover Animals. In the clip, a female humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) hovers above her baby's motionless body on the seafloor and tries to make eye contact with the newborn, as if to check for signs of life.
"It is extremely rare to witness," study first author Olaf Meynecke, a marine ecologist at Griffith University in Australia, told Live Science in an email. "Only about 20 births of humpback whales have been observed to date and described in literature," none of which involved a stillborn calf.
Unlike the babies of toothed whales and porpoises, newborn humpback whales don't have enough blubber to float, so they sink without the help of an adult whale. This might partly...
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