A camera lowered off the Gold Coast captured the first documented humpback stillbirth
Newborn humpbacks lack the blubber to float, so a stillborn calf sinks out of sight almost at once. None of the roughly 20 humpback births in the literature was a stillbirth until a Gold Coast crew put a camera in the water.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- At about 8am on 17 July 2025, a kilometre off the Gold Coast in Queensland, Andrew Mulville of the Sea World Foundation watched two adult humpbacks milling in one spot from a boat.
- By 8.30am he had recorded an amniotic membrane floating on the surface, a sign that a birth had happened, with no blood or placenta visible and no calf anywhere in view.
- A camera put into the water found the calf, less than 4 metres long, dead on the sandy seabed, and the mother kept returning to it, looking eye to eye and touching it with her head and pectoral fin.
- She never tried to push the body upward, the move humpback mothers make with a live newborn to help it breathe. The researchers took that absence of lifting as a sign she knew the calf was dead.
- Meynecke and Mulville wrote up the encounter as the first documentation of a humpback whale attending a stillborn calf, published in the journal Discover Animals.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint The whole case rests on behaviour watched from a boat, with no physiological or neurological measurement available, so grief stays an interpretation that this observation cannot settle.
- What's now possible capability The instrument was a camera lowered off a small boat. The rescue crews and tour operators already on the water when a birth goes wrong can reach the next case.
- Who's exposed exposure Meynecke says the mother's failure to deliver her placenta was itself extremely unusual and may have put her health at risk.
- What it sets up precedent Meynecke wants systematic documentation of rare neonatal mortality events, and eight other dead young humpbacks turned up in the same region in the same month to document.
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Stillbirth is common in mammals. Whale stillbirths are rarely observed, and Meynecke says that to his knowledge it had never been witnessed in humpbacks before [19]. Part of the reason is the newborn's body. Humpback calves do not carry enough blubber to float, so without an adult lifting them they sink, and Meynecke said a lifeless calf reaches the seabed immediately after birth, where it is almost impossible to spot from a distance [21].
From the surface there was not much to see. Two adults milled in one spot, diving, vocalising and rolling [4], and one went vertical with its tail pointing up [5]. Mulville, a rescue boat captain with the Sea World Foundation, said he was totally surprised once he worked out what was happening; at first sight he had thought it was just two whales resting on the surface, but their behaviour was unusual [27].
Underwater, the mother stayed close and kept returning. "She was repeatedly diving down for short times and swimming next to the calf, then resting next to it on the floor for about a minute, even moving the pectoral fin over the calf, then diving up again," Meynecke said [12]. The comparison group is the toothed whales, where postmortem attendance is well documented and where mothers have been seen raising dead calves to the surface [18][10]. "Unlike reports of toothed whales where mothers have been observed lifting their dead calves to the surface, this humpback whale mother showed prolonged postmortem behavior and attention toward her deceased calf under the surface," Meynecke said [11].
Duration limits what can be claimed from it. The behaviour was recorded for at least 90 minutes [13] inside an observation of about two hours, after which the crew left [14], so roughly three-quarters of the time anyone was watching [22]. It did not obviously end there: on each of the next two days, people on shore reported the same two adults in the same place [15]. The second animal was an escort, probably a female of similar age to the mother, though the researchers did not confirm that [16].
Meynecke is careful with the word grief. "It's really important to not humanise an encounter like this," he told New Scientist. "But then also to understand that it's a mammal, and we have evidence of, not necessarily grief, but the really dramatic change of behaviour that we see in other mammals such as elephants when they lose a member of their group or when they lose their calves." [30]
Rebecca Dunlop at the University of Queensland says descriptive case study reports such as this one "run the risk of anthropomorphising observed behaviours" [31]. She adds that the study "does present a balanced argument of how the observed behaviour could be interpreted" and notes that "grief", "emotion" and "distress" "must be used with caution since we cannot definitively assign these terms to the observed behaviour" [32]. Testing the emotional interpretation, she says, would take "more data and more occurrences" [33].
What to watch
- Whether the mother is re-identified from her fluke photos in the 16,000-whale catalogue in a coming season.
- Any explanation for the rising number of humpback births in southern Queensland, hundreds of kilometres south of the Great Barrier Reef.
- Any account of what killed the seven neonates found dead in the same region in the same month.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+32
- Incentives55
- Confidence70
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers- Builder
- Builder 51%
- Operator
- Operator 22%
- Investor
- Investor 27%
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
The study was published Wednesday, Sept. 16, in the journal Discover Animals, and the footage was recorded off the coast of southeastern Australia in July 2025.
- [2]
The encounter began at around 8am on 17 July 2025, when Andrew Mulville of the Sea World Foundation, an Australian charity, was aboard a boat a kilometre offshore from the Gold Coast in Queensland.
- [3]
By 8.30am, Mulville saw and recorded an amniotic membrane floating on the surface, indicating a birth had occurred, but no blood or placenta was visible.
- [4]
Mulville noticed two adult whales milling in the same location, occasionally diving, vocalising and rolling on the surface.
- [5]
One of the whales adopted a vertical position with its tail pointing up.
- [6]
Mulville placed a camera underwater and saw a stillborn calf, less than 4 metres long, that had sunk to the sandy seabed.
- [7]
The mother repeatedly approached the calf, looked at it eye to eye, and touched it with her head and pectoral fin.
- [8]
Meynecke told Live Science: "Only about 20 births of humpback whales have been observed to date and described in literature," none of which involved a stillborn calf.
- [9]
With a live newborn, humpback mothers typically try to push the calf to the surface to help it breathe, but in this case she did not, perhaps suggesting she knew it was not alive.
- [10]
Researchers have previously seen toothed whales pushing stillborn babies above the water, according to the study.
- [11]
Meynecke said: "Unlike reports of toothed whales where mothers have been observed lifting their dead calves to the surface, this humpback whale mother showed prolonged postmortem behavior and attention toward her deceased calf under the surface."
- [12]
Meynecke said: "She was repeatedly diving down for short times and swimming next to the calf, then resting next to it on the floor for about a minute, even moving the pectoral fin over the calf, then diving up again."
- [13]
The behaviour lasted for at least 90 minutes and possibly days.
- [14]
The researchers left the scene after about two hours of observation.
- [15]
On the next two days, members of the public on shore reported seeing the two adult whales in the same location.
- [16]
The other adult was an escort supporting the pregnant female; based on its size and appearance it was likely a female of similar age to the mother, but the researchers did not confirm this.
- [17]
The observation was led by Griffith University and Sea World Foundation, with Meynecke from Griffith University's Whales and Climate Research Program.
- [18]
Meynecke said postmortem attentive behaviour in cetaceans had been documented predominantly among toothed whales and delphinids but remained largely absent from research published on baleen whales such as humpbacks.
- [19]
Meynecke says stillbirth in mammals is common but extremely rare to observe in whales, and to his knowledge it has never before been witnessed in humpback whales.
- [20]
The paper, "First documentation of humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) post-mortem attendance of a stillborn", was written by J.-O. Meynecke and A. Mulville and published in Discover Animals.
- [21]
Newborn humpback whales do not have enough blubber to float and sink without the help of an adult whale; Meynecke said this might partly explain why no stillbirth had been witnessed in the species, as the lifeless body sinks to the seabed immediately after birth and is almost impossible to spot from a distance.
- [22]
The documented 90 minutes of behaviour covers about three-quarters of the roughly two-hour observation window.
- [23]
Seven deceased humpback whale neonates and one deceased young whale of unconfirmed age were also observed in July 2025 in the same region, and none of these appeared to be the stillborn whale observed by the scientists.
- [24]
Meynecke says it was extremely unusual that the mother did not deliver her placenta, and this may have also placed her at risk.
- [25]
Photos of the mother's distinctive fluke have been uploaded to a database of 16,000 individuals, and the researchers hope she will be recognised if she reappears in coming seasons.
- [26]
While it has become increasingly common for humpbacks to calve in southern Queensland as their population has grown, no one is sure why so many female whales are now giving birth hundreds of kilometres south of their traditional breeding grounds in the Great Barrier Reef.
- [27]
Rescue boat Capt. Andrew Mulville from Sea World Foundation said: "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."
- [28]
Meynecke said: "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 postmortem behavior in large whales."
- [29]
Eight dead young humpback whales in total were observed in the region in July 2025, separate from the stillborn calf.
- [30]
Meynecke said: "It's really important to not humanise an encounter like this. But then also to understand that it's a mammal, and we have evidence of, not necessarily grief, but the really dramatic change of behaviour that we see in other mammals such as elephants when they lose a member of their group or when they lose their calves."
- [31]
Rebecca Dunlop at the University of Queensland says descriptive case study reports such as this one "run the risk of anthropomorphising observed behaviours".
- [32]
Dunlop said: "However, the study does present a balanced argument of how the observed behaviour could be interpreted and notes that the terms 'grief', 'emotion' and 'distress' must be used with caution since we cannot definitively assign these terms to the observed behaviour."
- [33]
Dunlop says only with "more data and more occurrences" would it be possible to test the hypothesis that what was observed was emotional or grieving behaviour.
- [34]
Grief is difficult to demonstrate due to the lack of physiological or neurological measurements.
Sources
3 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- livescience.com'It is extremely rare to witness': Scientists record humpback whale mom grieving her stillborn calf in first-of-its-kind footage
1 article · September 16, 2026
- newscientist.comHumpback whale mother with stillborn calf shows ‘grief-like’ behaviour
1 article · September 16, 2026
- phys.orgWeeping whales: Stillborn humpback whale grieving documented
1 article · September 16, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- Humpback whale calving
- Cetacean behaviour
- Animal thanatology
- Anthropomorphism in animal research
- Underwater video observation
Entities
- Whales and Climate Research Program
- Discover Animals
- Griffith University
- University of Queensland
- Sea World Foundation