Reproduction is ‘very rare’ for a humpback male, study of South Pacific whales finds
As few as 7% of male humpback whales in New Caledonia in the south-west Pacific may have fathered offspring, a study has found.
“It tells us that becoming a father is a very rare outcome for a humpback male and one which they have to compete very strongly for,” said Dr Luke Rendell, a co-author of the study from the University of St Andrews. He said they could compete by fighting off other males or “impressing” females with their song.
They then used the genetic data, which encompassed 936 mature males, to determine the paternity of 177 mother–offspring pairs. The remaining fathers, Rendell said, would have been unsampled males either from the New Caledonian humpback whale population or visitors from other populations. Another genetic analysis suggested there were about 2,000 to 2,600 males that could be fathers to the offspring studied, meaning that just under half were sampled.
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