Mystery of humpback whale that was found dead in Amazon jungle and no one knows how it got there
Topics: Animals, Weird, World News
Tom Wood
Featured Image Credit: Bicho D'água
Topics: Animals, Weird, World News
A dead humpback whale was discovered in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, a long way away from anywhere you would expect to find a whale.
It's the most bizarre situation ever. A whale carcass measuring 36 feet was discovered well outside of its natural habitat, and nobody has any idea how it got there.
Obviously, there are theories as you would expect with all unsolved mysteries, however there's nothing concrete.
The animal weighs 10 tonnes and was found in a woodland area of Brazil, which is about 50 feet from the sea.
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While the discovery site may not be that far, imagine you're a dead whale, you would struggle to get out of the sea at all - let alone into the woods.
The humpback was discovered in February 2019 on the island of Marajo, at the mouth of the Amazon river. It was found at a place called Araruna Beach in the undergrowth.
The best guess that the scientists can come up with is that the whole creature was thrown out of the water and up into the woods by rough seas and high tides.
A team of specialists travelled to the place to try to ascertain exactly what happened to the poor thing.
It is thought that the animal is a 12-month-old calf, but so far we don't know how it died, let alone how it ended up in a mangrove.
The team, sent by the NGO Bicho D'Agua Institute, published a Facebook post that suggested that the animal could have got tangled up in the mangroves after being tossed ashore onto the island.
The Maritime Herald newspaper suggested that the whale could have died from eating plastics in the ocean. Most people think that the creature was dead when it was washed ashore.
Dirlene Silva, from SEMMA - the Brazilian environmental, health, and sanitation department - told local media: We only found the whale because of the presence of scavenging birds of prey.
"The vultures were spotted circling above the carcass which was found hidden in the bush some distance from the sea."
Bicho D'Agua's president and marine specialist Renata Emin said: "We're still not sure how it landed here, but we're guessing that the creature was floating close to the shore and the tide, which has been pretty considerable over the past few days, picked it up and threw it inland, into the mangrove.
"Along with this astonishing feat, we are baffled as to what a humpback whale is doing on the north coast of Brazil during February because this is a very unusual occurrence."
You see, the whales aren't supposed to be there. They're usually in the Bahia area between August and November. They then migrate up to Antarctica.
Emin continued: "Humpback whales don't usually travel to the north. We have a record of one appearing in the area three years ago, but it's rare.
"We believe this is a calf which may have been travelling with its mother and probably got lost or separated during the migratory cycle between the two continents."