Researchers discovered humpback whales in the Arabia Sea are the most genetically distinct in the world.
The findings suggest this humpback whale population have remained separate for up to 70,000 years, the Wildlife Conservation Society reported.
"The epic seasonal migrations of humpbacks elsewhere are well known, so this small, non-migratory population presents a wonderful and intriguing enigma," said WCS researcher and study co-author Tim Collins. "They also beg many questions: how and why did the population originate, how does it persist, and how do their behaviors differ from other humpback whales?"
To make their findings the researchers examined nuclear and mitochondrial DNA taken from tissue biopsies from 47 individual whales. They then compared these samples to ones taken from humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere and the North Pacific.
"The Arabian Sea humpback whales are the world's most isolated population of this species and definitely the most endangered," said Howard Rosenbaum, Director of WCS's Ocean Giants Program and senior author on the study. "The known and growing risks to this unique population include ship strikes and fishing net entanglement, threats that could be devastating for this diminished population; we need to see increased regional efforts to provide better protection for these whales."
he researchers believe the 70,000-year separation might be linked to various glacial episodes in the late Pleistocene Epoch as well as variations in the strength of the Indian Monsoon. The separation is also most likely reinforced by the fact that the breeding seasons of these different whale populations do not synch up.
"The Arabian Sea humpback whales are the world's most isolated population of this species and definitely the most endangered," Rosenbaum said. "The known and growing risks to this unique population include ship strikes and fishing net entanglement, threats that could be devastating for this diminished population; we need to see increased regional efforts to provide better protection for these whales."
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal PLOS ONE.
