WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — There are easy ways to cross the ocean, but few are as easy or stylish as Remora’s whale-surfing joyride.
Scientist keep an eye on the humpback off the coast of Australia Rare footage has been captured showing clutches of freeloading fish peeling away from their host in what looks like a high-speed game of chicken, moments before the whale breaks free.
As the humpback drops below the surface, the remora, also known as a sucker fish, returns to the whale, making its landing with the timing and precision of an Olympic gymnast. That’s a pretty feat for a hitchhiking fish that lives upside down and survives on bits of dead skin.
Remora australis spend their lives on whales or other large marine mammals, which they ride on like giant cruise ships, breeding and foraging across the ocean expanses. This species has an adhesive plate on the head that helps create a type of vacuum seal, allowing the fish to grab onto the whale and hang on for the ride.
Gummy fish steal the show on whale cam
Marine scientists who recorded accidental close-ups of remoras’ high-speed whale surfing placed suction-cup cameras on humpbacks during their annual migration from Antarctica to the waters off Australia’s Queensland state. Olaf Menneke planned to study the whales’ behavior, but his video feed was regularly filled with dozens of photobombing remoras, rowing in groups of up to 50 as they stuck to the same spots where his cameras were mounted.
“Whenever the whales were intruding and making particularly fast movements, it appeared that the suckers were responding very quickly to this movement,” said Meneke of the Whale and Climate Research Program at Griffith University. “They knew exactly when to leave the whale’s body before breaking the surface of the water and then return to the same spot just a few seconds later.”
a good fellow traveler
Remoras are harmless to the 40-metric-ton (44-US ton) giants of the ocean, who eat the whales’ dead skin and sea lice in a mutually beneficial arrangement – or at least that’s what scientists say. Meineke said his footage shows that the whales are in trouble with their hangars.
“We have individuals that have high numbers of these remoras and they were constantly breaching and there were no other whales that they were communicating with,” he said. “It appeared that they were trying to get rid of some of these regrets and they were checking if they had any less left after the breach.”
The end of the journey remains a mystery
Australia’s so-called Humpback Highway is a migratory corridor through which 40,000 mammals pass, bringing them close to the country’s east coast for months each year as they travel from the icy Antarctic waters off the coast of Queensland and back. How much of the 10,000 km (6,000 mi) journey is made by the free-feeding fish, which only lives about two years, is still a puzzle, Meineke said.
“I suspect that the majority will probably migrate at some point, perhaps to temperate waters, but then where will they go?” He said. “Do they find other species they can use as hosts and wait for the humpback whales to come back?”
In the absence of whales, sucker fish avoid predators by seeking out other large creatures, including manta rays, dolphins, and unlucky scuba divers.
“Obviously, the divers suffered a lot,” Meineke said. “It’s not easy to get rid of them.”