A Humpback Whale Appears In The Amazon
Bicho D’agua Institute/FacebookThe young whale was found 50 feet from shore on an Amazonian island — when it should have been thousands of miles south in Antarctica.
Every year it seems like something new is discovered in the Amazon rainforest. This year, however, it was something highly unexpected: the carcass of a humpback whale.
In February of this year, biologists on Brazil’s Marajó Island in the Amazon Rainforest discovered a 10-ton humpback whale carcass lying 50 feet from the shore.
After noticing dozens of birds swooping and screeching over a section of wooded area, biologists ventured into a mangrove swamp to investigate. There, they found the 26-foot-long carcass of a young whale.
Experts theorized that the whale was likely washed ashore during a storm and carried inland by high tide, but remained baffled by how far inland the body had traveled, and why it was even in the area at all. At that time of year, it should have been thousands of miles south in Antarctica.
Researchers believed it may have been separated from its mother, which would explain its solitude, but were still unsure of the cause of death. No news yet on how it got there.
