Emily Chan
Everyone knows what a kitten or a puppy looks like. They’re basically just miniature versions of their parents. Horses and elephants are the same way. They emerge from their mother’s womb, appearing exactly how you would expect them to look.
But there are lots of other animals that we’ve never seen when they’re young, so whether they take after their parents or not is just a big question mark to us. Here is a list of animals you might recognize but have never seen as a newborn.
Great White Shark
It’s tough to observe the reproductive cycle of deep-sea species because, well, they’re deep underwater and surrounded by darkness. Even for creatures as large as great white sharks, their designated birthing places have remained elusive.
However, in 2024, a drone captured rare footage of a newborn great white shark. The baby shark was five feet long and was shedding a layer of some kind of white substance from its body as it swam.
It’s likely that the shark was shedding intrauterine substances after just entering the world. It is also possible that the shark may have just been a juvenile with a skin condition.
Blue Whale
The biggest mammal on earth is the blue whale, and yet nobody has ever observed one giving birth. But blue whales have been spotted performing a mating ritual and nursing a calf.
According to the Marine Mammal Center, newborn blue whales come out weighing around 5,000 to 6,000 pounds. Over the course of their lives, they visit every ocean except for the Arctic. It’s thought that they travel to the waters near Central America to have their babies.
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