This is called a “breaching whale”.
The National Antarctic Science Center has released a video showing whales jumping in Antarctica.
Scientists note that ordinary people should be really lucky to see this, although whales often jump. The most jumping among its suborder of baleen whales is the humpback whale. In the video shot by Ruslan Belozerov, you can see a young representative of the hunchbacks.
The jump, which is called breaching whale, is one of the types of behavior of hunchbacks on the surface of the water. In total there are almost two dozen of them. There are also different types of rotations during jumps – clockwise, counterclockwise, or no rotation at all, when the whale falls on its back or side.
Scientists suggest that this may be a way of communication between whales, or an attempt to get rid of parasites that live en masse on their skin and “scratch” themselves on the water.
Studying whales in Antarctica: what is known
In 2018, a comprehensive cetacean research program was launched at the Ukrainian station “Akademik Vernadsky”. This includes photo identification, collection of biopsies and recording of whale sounds.
Recently, Ukrainian scientists said that they were able to record the “communication” of southern swimmers. They noted that this is the least studied whale species in the world.
