Unexpected discoveries about the sex life of humpback whales

Humpback whales were discovered for the first time to have homosexual behavior from two male individuals .

Stephanie Stack, a graduate student at the Pacific Whale Foundation, recently published a photo showing two male whales having sex near the water's surface.

The first image shows two humpback whales mating. (Photo: Iflscience).

According to this expert, although humpback whales are one of the most studied whale species, there are still no records of how they mate.

Accordingly , the sexual behavior of humpback whales is still almost a mystery, and the fact that they have homosexual sex makes the scientific community even more surprised.

"This discovery challenges our preconceived notions about humpback whale behavior ," Stack shared. "It was truly a remarkable event."

The fact that humpback whales have same-sex relationships adds them to the list of more than a thousand species recorded on Earth that practice this behavior.

While researchers are interested in learning the details of how humpback whales have sex with same-sex partners, conservationists are looking for evolutionary explanations.

According to them, the purpose of sexual behavior - but not reproduction - can be very diverse among animals. What they are trying to do may be to establish or strengthen dominance relationships, form alliances within the herd, or reduce tensions.

Humpback whales still have many mysteries to science. (Photo: Getty).

Humpback whales are about 15 meters long and weigh up to 30 tons. This is a whale species that scientists are interested in studying because their body structure and lifestyle are very interesting.

Humpback whales mainly eat krill, but can consume about 6.6 million tons of food per year, equivalent to 18,082 tons in a day.

This number is truly astonishing because it is hundreds of times greater than the weight of an adult humpback whale, when they usually only weigh about 30-36 tons.

They are also species that have a very unique way of communicating with each other, through "songs" - actually sounds - that combine together to form a series of units called a "sentence".

The repeated "verses" create a "theme", which is sung by the species in a specific order to form a song that lasts 5 to 30 minutes, and a humpback whale's song session can last as long as few hours.