A 36-foot-long whale (yes, a whale) was recently discovered in the remote Brazilian jungle, miles from its natural habitat, when scavenging vultures alerted local officials with their screeching.

Image credit: Instituto Bicho D’agua/Facebook

It’s no news that the Amazon rainforest is teeming with life, but a recent discovery has even the most seasoned biologists and wildlife experts baffled. In the weeds of the island of Marajó, in Brazil, they found nothing less than the carcass of a 10-ton humpback whale.

Preliminary theories suggest that the whale washed ashore during a storm or was already dead when rising tides washed it ashore. However, scientists do not know how it managed to get so far inland or why it swam off the coast of Marajó.

Image credit: Instituto Bicho D’agua/Facebook

Marine specialists from local conservation group Instituto Bicho D’agua are examining the carcass, and preliminary assessments suggest the young whale died a couple of days before being found about 50 feet offshore. Project leader Renata Emin is captivated by the mammal’s discovery and intrigued by its journey.

“We are still not sure how it landed here, but we assume that the creature was floating near the shore and the tide, which has been quite considerable in recent days, picked it up and threw it inland towards the mangrove,” he said.

“In addition to this amazing feat, we are baffled about what a humpback whale is doing off the northern coast of Brazil during February because it is a very unusual occurrence,” he added.

Humpback whales are typically found in late summer and fall, although much further south. Only on very rare occasions do they venture north, to the mouth of the Amazon River. Emin suggested that the young animal was separated from its mother, but the cause of death is still unknown.

Image credit: Instituto Bicho D’agua/Facebook

“Depending on the state of decomposition, some information may already have been lost,” Emin said. “We are collecting all the information we can get and identifying marks and wounds on his body to see if he was caught in a net or hit by a boat.”

State Department official Dirlene Silva explained that access to the body and the region where it was found is so difficult that it had to be disassembled and examined on the spot.

“It’s very difficult to get there and there’s no way we can send a bulldozer because it wouldn’t be able to get through,” Silva said. “There is no way to eliminate it. To get there, we have to cross the swamp.”

The area where the body was found. Image credit: Instituto Bicho D’agua/Facebook

Due to the size, weight and location of the body, there are currently no plans to remove it. Instead, researchers intend to bury most of it, while the skeleton will be sent to the Goeldi Natural History Museum in Belem for future studies.

Hopefully this will be a step towards revealing what exactly happened to this unfortunate hunchback baby, but for now no one knows for sure.

Image credit: Instituto Bicho D’agua/Facebook