"After nearly two decades, the baby whale came back-as a mother, with a baby of its own. Julie Albert, director of the Right Whale Sighting Network at Blue World Research Institute, a nonprofit, first laid eyes on the North Atlantic right whale known as Callosity Back in 2007 when it was still just a calf, swimming off the coast of Florida."
"Immediately, she says, the whale stood out. Like other North Atlantic right whales, it had callosities-patches of thick, white, rough tissue on its skin. But unlike any other known right whale, this one had those markings on its back. "That's how she got her name," says Albert. "She's definitely an individual." Then, on New Year's Eve 2025, Callosity Back returned to Florida."
Callosity Back, a North Atlantic right whale first seen as a calf in 2007, returned to Florida after nearly two decades with her own calf. The whale is uniquely identifiable by callosities on its back rather than the typical head patches. Observers watched the mother and calf swim for hours off Florida's central-eastern coast on New Year's Eve 2025. The calf is one of 21 right whale calves documented so far this calving season, which runs mid-November to mid-April. Only 11 calves were counted the previous season. The estimated population in 2024 numbered 384 North Atlantic right whales, and the species remains on the brink of extinction following historic commercial whaling.
Read at WIRED
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