An Australian ocean explorer out in a transparent kayak caught on camera an extremely rare sighting of a humpback whale “tail sailing.” Tail sailing is a unique action of when a humpback whale sticks its tail out of the water for a prolonged amount of time.
Brodie Moss shared the video of the whale on TikTok and YouTube where it quickly gained over 31 million views in just a few days. He was stunned when he spotted the female whale upside down with her head down in the water and her tail sticking out of the water. She also had a baby whale with her.
Moss wrote in his video’s description, “I believe this is called ‘tail sailing’ and it’s really rare for humpback whales to do, rarely been captured on film and no one really knows why they do it? Hopefully this footage helps understand it a little better…”
https://youtu.be/cVAN-5JYsGY
Below is the TikTok version of the video.
@ybsbrodie whale vs transparent kayak
Others viewing the video agreed it looked like tail sailing. One viewer said the behavior “could be for nursing, resting or just cooling off.” Another person remarked the same thing writing the whale is “feeding its baby, cooling down, and having a rest, tail sailing.”
The reason some experts think that tail sailing helps regulate a whale’s body temperature is because the prolonged exposing of their flukes above the water exposes that part of the body to temperatures and conditions above the water. Whatever the reason, Moss captured amazing footage above and below the surface of the ocean!
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