The Metabolome of Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) Reveals Clues as to their Extreme Fasting Capabilities

This dataset contains relative abundances of 34 polar metabolites detected in blubber biopsies from humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrating along the east coast of Australia. Samples were collected in Moreton Bay Marine Park, North Stradbroke Island, southeast Queensland, Australia, from individuals belonging to the east Australian migrating population (breeding stock E1, IWC designation) during their annual migration between Antarctic feeding grounds and tropical breeding areas. Metabolite quantification was performed using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and metabolite identification was conducted using Chenomx NMR Suite 8.2 (Chenomx Inc., Edmonton, Canada), based on the acquired ¹H spectra and comparison against reference spectra in the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) to confirm 32 out of 34 metabolite identities.