Two humpback whales have pulled off a feat scientists had never documented before, making separate record-breaking crossings between Australia and Brazil.

Researchers identified the whales by their distinctive tail markings at the two locations, about 14,500 kilometers apart. The whales traveled in opposite directions and went farther than any humpback known so far.

“It’s a very rare event, but it is a really wonderful demonstration of just how wide-ranging these animals are,” said Phillip Clapham, former head of a NOAA whale research program who was not involved with the new findings.

Humpback whales are known for roaming long distances across major oceans in predictable patterns, typically following migration routes learned from their mothers. They feed on krill and small fish in the warmer months and breed in tropical waters over winter.

In the new study, scientists analyzed more than 19,000 whale images taken over the past four decades by research groups and citizen scientists. Recognition software helped identify the whales based on their tails’ color patterns and jagged edges.

Researchers matched two different whales at breeding sites in eastern Australia and Brazil over the years, suggesting they had crossed from one place to the other. One whale traveled just over 15,000 kilometers, beating previous recordholders, including a humpback that swam from Colombia to Zanzibar.

The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Because the photos only show the whales at the beginning and end of their trips, researchers do not know the exact route they took. Whales do not typically travel between mating sites, so it is still unclear why these two separately made the crossings.

They may have met other whales on shared feeding grounds and split off instead of returning to where they came from, study co-author Stephanie Stack with the Pacific Whale Foundation said in an email.

“Finding not one but two individuals that have crossed between Australia and Brazil challenges what we thought we knew about how separate these populations really are,” Stack said.

Scientists said such long trips are harder for whales in the Northern Hemisphere, where massive continents make traveling across oceans tougher. They also said the same methods could help track humpbacks as climate change warms oceans and may change where krill live and where whales go to feed and breed.

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