A humpback whale mother stayed beside her dead calf for hours, possibly days, in a rare encounter that raises questions about how these ocean giants experience loss.
Researchers from Griffith University and the SeaWorld Foundation documented the encounter off the southern Gold Coast in 2025. The female, accompanied by an escort whale, had given birth to a calf presumed to be dead and continued attending to it beneath the surface.
SeaWorld Foundation Rescue Boat Captain Andrew Mulville initially mistook the scene for an ordinary pause at sea. “When I actually worked out what was happening, I was totally surprised.”
“At first sight, I thought it was just two whales resting on the surface, but their behavior was unusual. It was definitely not what I was expecting to see out at sea that day.”
A Mother’s Vigil Beneath the Surface
According to Dr. Olaf Meynecke, of Griffith University’s Whales and Climate Research Program, most published observations of cetaceans attending to their dead involve toothed whales and dolphins (known as odontocetes). Comparable accounts in baleen whales, including humpbacks, are much rarer.
*May cause distress to viewers* This video, taken in 2025 off the southern Queensland coast in Australia, shows a humpback whale mother returning to the seafloor to her stillborn calf. Credit: Andy Mulville
“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 behavior and attention towards her deceased calf under the surface,” Dr. Meynecke said.
“She remained close to the calf, maintaining eye contact and positioning herself next to her calf over several hours and maybe even days.
“These observed behaviors were consistent with caregiving or nurturing actions and post-mortem attentive responses documented in socially complex mammals and indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf.”
What Whale Behavior Can Reveal About Grief
The encounter suggests that maternal attachment may persist after a calf dies. Whether the mother experienced grief remains uncertain; her actions offer clues about her emotional state but cannot establish what she felt or understood.
Dr. Meynecke described this encounter and other observations involving dead calves as deeply sad while emphasizing their scientific value. Such rare events contribute to a limited body of evidence about the emotional and cognitive aspects of responses to death in baleen (filter-feeding) cetaceans.
“This case study highlights the need for continued systematic documentation of rare neonatal mortality events to better understand the cognitive, emotional, and evolutionary significance of post-mortem behavior in large whales,” he said.
“Understanding how non-human animals responded to death provides insight into their emotional lives, social bonds, and cognitive capacities.”
Reference: “First documentation of humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) post-mortem attendance of a stillborn” by Jan-Olaf Meynecke, and Andrew Mulville, 16 September 2026, Discover Animals.
DOI: 10.1007/s44338-026-00232-9
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