The world's oldest known killer whale is believed to have died, say scientists who have been monitoring the orca since 1976.
Officially known as J2, but nicknamed "Granny" by marine researchers due to her longevity, the whale was last seen on 12 October, swimming north with other members of her pod in the Salish Sea off the Pacific Northwest region between the US and Canada.
"She kept on going, like the Energizer bunny," Dr Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research (CWR) wrote in her "obituary" on the centre's website. "With regret we now consider her deceased."
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Granny is thought to have been roaming the ocean for around 105 years, which, as several news outlets have observed, would mean she was born before the Titanic sank in 1912. She was first observed and photographed in 1976, by Balcomb, who led a four decades-long study of orcas in the Salish.
Her apparent death means their population is now estimated at just 78, he said, with numbers hit by pollution, disturbance from shipping and dwindling stocks of salmon in recent decades.
The whales were the subject of last year's BBC Radio 4 documentary The Whale Menopause, which described how orcas, like humans, experience the menopause, the BBC reports.
The lifespan of most mammals rarely exceeds their reproductive years, but female whales like Granny can live for decades after ceasing to be fertile in their 40s or 50s.
These matriarchs "guide the pod as it forages, take care of other females' young calves and even feed the larger males," the BBC reports.
Professor Darren Croft from the University of Exeter, who leads evolutionary biology research into the whale menopause, told the BBC: "It was inevitable that this day was going to come but it is very sad news and a further blow to this population."
"Although J2 is gone, we will continue to benefit for many decades to come, from the incredible data collected on her life over the last 40 years by the Center for Whale Research."
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