It’s hard to miss: A 30-ton mammal flings itself out of choppy waters, hanging in the air for a brief moment before its 45-foot frame crashes back into the water, sending a plume of sea foam into the air as it lands.
You’ve just seen a humpback whale breaching. These whales have been spotted breaching-or exposing large portions of their bodies above the water-year-round, in their winter breeding grounds, their summer feeding grounds, and while traveling between the two. Their breaching behavior while on the move caught the attention of a team of scientists in Australia, who wondered why-when breaching takes so much energy, and humpbacks rarely, if ever, eat while migrating-these giants would use their energy to jump unless it meant something.
Researchers working with the BRAHSS (Behavioural Response of Australian Humpback Whales to Seismic Surveys) project observed 94 different groups of humpback whales migrating past the coast of Australia en route to the Antarctic. In a scholarly article published in Marine Mammal Science, the team pinpointed specific surface behaviors-its term for the whales’ actions as they breach or slap the water with their fins-and what they might mean. It noticed the whales’ surface behaviors became more common on windy days or when there were other groups of whales very far away, supporting the opinion that whales use these behaviors as a form of communication. By leaping into the air or slapping the water with their fins, whales make major noise-noise that helps them communicate across large distances when background sounds from the weather, boats in the area, or other sources might block out their vocal noises.
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