Ontogeny and synchrony of diving behavior in Humpback whale mothers and calves on their breeding ground

Abstract For humpback whales, the mother–calf pair is only stable social unit with calves following their mother after birth and staying in close proximity. This strategy ensures maintenance of such proximity between her calf, benefiting from maternal protection care. Using multi-sensor tags, we recorded diving behavior at three different age-classes (C1, C2, C3) to assess how developed natural environment an early stage life. From 29 deployments on calves, extracted metrics two C1 neonate eight C2 19 C3 found that some (dive duration, time bottom, maximal depth, or dive duration) differed among calves’ age-classes. On 23 tagged mothers, analyzed if profiles also varied depending calf’s age-class. We showed mothers age own (time spent interval dives), but all others were not reliant age. Simultaneous seven pairs 2016 2017 revealed highly synchronized dives, leading pattern. work represents extensive study investigating whale breeding ground.