Modern humans are arguably the most familiar with loneliness, as it’s proven to be an increasingly prevalent feeling despite our advanced forms of connection. But we are not alone in this. There are many creatures in the universe used to being alone.
Click through to learn about the loneliest things and creatures in the universe.
Imagine you were the only person in the world who spoke a certain language, and no one could ever understand you. Welcome to the world of the loneliest whale in the world.
52 Blue
- While most whales communicate at a frequency of 10–39 Hz, 52 Blue calls at a frequency of 52 Hz, meaning that no other whales can hear him or even know that he's there.
52 Blue
- Wandering through the vast ocean without any friends or family, this solitary whale (discovered in the 1980s) is certainly one of the world's loneliest creatures.
Opportunity, the Mars rover
- In February 2019, NASA announced that they would be trying one last time to contact its record-setting, but silent, Mars rover before declaring it dead after 15 years.
Opportunity, the Mars rover
- Victim of one of the most intense dust storms in decades, the rover that first confirmed water on Mars might still be alive, but NASA can't keep trying to call out with no response.
Opportunity, the Mars rover
- “It's just like a loved one who's gone missing, and you keep holding out hope that they will show up and that they're healthy,” the project manager said. “But each passing day that diminishes, and at some point you have to say 'enough' and move on with your life.”
Opportunity, the Mars rover
- Imagine NASA as Noah from 'The Notebook,' and Opportunity as Allie, and how lonely they both felt not receiving contact from each other.
Lonesome George
- His name hints at just how lonely this Pinta Island Tortoise (Chelonoidis abingdoni), from the Galápagos, really was. Lonesome George was the last of his kind.
His species was not rare in the 19th century, but the whole population was wiped out by humans, harvested for meat on long sea voyages since they could live up to a year without food or water.
George's discovery in 1972 was a kind of miracle, as his kind was thought to be extinct. He was 60 years old and brought to a zoo, where the story just gets even more sad.
Lonesome George
- Instead of being given a peaceful end of life like most other 60-year-old animals, George was prodded to mate with other subspecies, which yielded no successful offspring. He died in 2012, and his entire species with him.
Toughie was the last Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog in the world, a species which was usually found gliding from one tree to another in the rain forest of Panama.
He was brought into captivity to protect him from a widespread infection that killed the rest of his species, but the life that awaited him was reportedly in a dull, gray shipping container far from a rain forest.
Toughie was not forced to mate, as frogs mate only with their own species, and the last female of his species had already died. He lived alone for seven years.
The saddest part about Toughie's story, however, is that once he entered captivity he completely stopped his mating calls, and wouldn't respond to recorded calls, as if he knew there was no one out there for him anymore.
Curiosity the rover
- Alone on a planet many light-years from home, the Curiosity rover has spent nearly seven years on Mars, but how lonely can a robot be?
Curiosity the rover
- Well, on the one-year anniversary of its Martian landing, little Curiosity sang 'Happy Birthday' to itself. It officially had the loneliest birthday in the galaxy.
Sudan the rhino
- Sudan, a northern white rhinoceros, was brought to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya in 2009, in the company of one other male and two females, all of whom escaped mass poaching.
Sudan the rhino
- Though Tinder raised funds for in-vitro fertilization research, Sudan's declining health caused veterinarians to put him down in 2018.
Sudan the rhino
- Even more tragic is his legacy, as he leaves behind two females, a daughter, and granddaughter, as the last remaining members of their subspecies.
Tree of Ténéré
- It's likely to have sprouted with many others before the desert became a desert, but it became the lone survivor after a well dug in 1938 gave it a steady source of water.
Its proud but lonely stand against time was abruptly ended in 1973, when a drunk driver managed to crash into the only obstacle for hundreds of miles. A metal sculpture now takes its place in the desert.
The world's loneliest island
- Tristan da Cunha is actually an archipelago of four islands, but only one—Tristan da Cunha Island—is inhabited. It's the world's most remote inhabited island in the world.
The world's loneliest island
- A lingering possession of the British Empire, the extraordinary island is located in the far South Atlantic, thousands of kilometers from both the coast of Brazil and South Africa.
The world's loneliest island
- The island has around 250 inhabitants, whose only way of traveling in and out of Tristan is by a six-day boat trip. But the inhabitants reportedly love it!
An isolated indigenous man in Brazil has been living alone in the Amazon for at least 22 years, dubbing him the world's loneliest man.
He's believed to be the sole surviving member of his tribe as, starting in the '80s, farmers, illegal loggers, and land-grabbers encroached on their territory in Rondônia and massacred them.
The "Man of the Hole"
- No one knows the name of his tribe or the language he speaks, but FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs department, has protected the land he lives on, despite him reportedly firing arrows at employees trying to contact him.
In 2018, FUNAI released rare video footage of the man semi-naked in the forest, swinging an axe with fervor. Unfortunately, the "Man of the Hole" died in 2022.
