Brody Mossfamous Australian tiktoker, recently shared a video that did not leave indifferent his subscribers. In it you can see how, while the influencer moves through transparent kayaktail Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) rises still in front of him. This phenomenon, known as “sail tail”, has been described by other sailors and scientists. However, it remains unclear why.
In his Tik Tok video, Moss also shows a baby, possibly the daughter of a large whale, swimming around its tail. As she submerges her camera in the water, she captures the calf rubbing against her mother’s body as the two quietly sing together.
It’s a nice scene, but is that the purpose of the whales’ tails swimming? Any ritual between mothers and daughters? There was a time when they thought it was something like this, because in several observations a calf swims next to a whale’s tail. Sometimes they even watched the mother feed her daughter. But it is not something fixed. Many cases of a sail tail have been found in which there was no lack of breeding in the immediate vicinity, so it must be something else. The truth is that there are several hypotheses, but it is not clear which one is stronger.
The tail of a whale that acts like a sail
This phenomenon is known as tail swimmer because the whale’s tail acts as ship sailholding the animal upright. In some cases it has been observed that the whale is actually not quite yet, but spins smoothly, like a synchronized swimmer. So maybe it could be the navigation method.
However, they sometimes completely stillfrom a few seconds to 10 or 12 minutes. For this reason, it is also believed that it may be way to relax
Whales seek out shallow water and stay in place effortlessly as the wind blowing on their tail helps them move. maintain stability. This can be useful after a long trip, a day of hunting, or just to look after your cubs without wasting energy.
On the other hand, this could be a way feed closer to the bottombecause when a whale’s tail sticks out of the water like this, its head is usually at the bottom of the ocean. But above all, scientists believe it could be a way to cool off. The whale’s tail has a large number of blood vessels which, coming to the surface of the water, help to cool the whole body, like a kind of radiator. It would be something similar to the method we humans use to cool ourselves by increasing blood flow in vessels close to the surface of the skin.
Australian tiktoker wasn’t the only one
This Australian tiktoker hopes his video will help scientists better understand the whale tail phenomenon. The truth is that he wrote it down in a place where there were several sightings. But this is not only happening in Australia. Cases have also been reported in places such as Brazil or Hawaii.
The tail of the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) is most commonly seen, but more and more cases are being seen in humpback whales like the one seen by a tiktoker with her calf. The goal is a mystery, but the result is a truly mesmerizing sight.
Source: Hiper Textual
