{"id":400512,"date":"2026-01-31T11:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/400512\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T11:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:42:18","slug":"i-immediately-knew-it-was-the-largest-tiger-shark-ive-ever-seen-in-my-life-this-was-like-a-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/400512\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI immediately knew it was the largest tiger shark I\u2019ve ever seen in my life. This was like a truck.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

In BBC Earth\u2019s Close Encounters YouTube series, people share their life-changing experiences with nature. One such person is whale scientist Nan Hauser, who had a close call when she believes a humpback whale<\/a> saved her life.<\/p>\n

When filming in the South Pacific, whale scientist Nan Hauser was swimming near humpbacks when one of them looked at her and started \u201ccharging\u201d towards her.<\/p>\n

Despite her attempts to create distance between herself and the whale, it kept trying to tuck her under its pectoral fin \u2013 and even lifted her out of the water and put her on its head.<\/p>\n

But after spotting what she thought was another whale, Hauser realised it was a tiger shark<\/a>. And it was swimming straight towards her. This led Hauser to believe the humpback had in fact been trying to protect her from the shark.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Recounting her tale to BBC Earth, Hauser says \u201cI still to this day can\u2019t believe it happened, and being a scientist, it\u2019s even harder. If someone told me the story, I wouldn\u2019t believe them.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the only time whales have been recorded communicating with humans<\/a> in some form, as they have been filmed creating bubble rings in front of boats. <\/p>\n

Are whales altruistic?<\/p>\n

Hauser mentions the marine ecologist Robert Pittman\u2019s work about altruism<\/a> in humpback whales. In 2016, he was the lead author of a study published in Marine Mammal Science titled Humpback whales interfering when mammal-eating killer whales attack other species: Mobbing behavior and interspecific altruism?<\/a><\/p>\n

Humpback whales have been documented interfering with attacking orcas<\/a>, displaying what is called \u2018mobbing\u2019 behaviour. Mobbing involves a prey species harassing its predator at close range, making bodily contact and sometimes even killing the predator.<\/p>\n

However, these humpbacks were mobbing animals that were attacking a different species, so the team questioned why the whales put themselves at risk \u2013 especially since orcas are capable of killing humpbacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The team suggested three hypotheses: kin selection, reciprocity and altruism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kin selection is a type of natural selection that occurs when an animal \u2018sacrifices\u2019 themselves to benefit the genetic fitness of its relatives. An example of this can be seen in groups of zebras, when the adults turn towards an attacking predator<\/a> to protect the herd\u2019s young, rather than fleeing to protect themselves.<\/p>\n

One of the most well-known examples of reciprocity in the animal kingdom is in vampire bats<\/a>, which risk starvation by regurgitating blood for their roost mates.<\/p>\n

\u2018True\u2019 altruism<\/a> (as humans understand it) differs from these concepts as it does not rely on natural selection, and there is no guarantee that the other animal will be later \u2018rewarded\u2019 with a cooperative behaviour.<\/p>\n

Pittman\u2019s team concluded: \u201cIf the net effect for mobbing humpbacks was an increase in their individual or inclusive fitness through kin selection or reciprocity, then this behaviour could persist even if it inadvertently benefitted other species sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, they suggest that further research into interspecific altruism is needed \u2013 even if this behaviour is unintentional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In BBC Earth\u2019s Close Encounters YouTube series, people share their life-changing experiences with nature. One such person is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-400512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}