The weather was superb this morning as the wind dropped to a whisper and the conditions became glassy… that point when you can almost see your reflection in the ocean! Our southern migrating Humpbacks seemed at ease in these calm conditions as they shuffled around small bait balls of fish and we sighted some beautiful tail dives that showed off some rather interesting markings on their flukes.
A Humpback Whale will naturally have many barnacles living on them and these barnacles are 100% reliant on their host as they can only live on the skin of a Humpback Whale and no other. The lifespan of the Coronula diadema (Humpback Barnacle) is only a year and during the northern migration many of them come to the end of their lifecycle and come away from the skin of our Humpbacks but they will always leave their mark. The circular rings you can see on the flukes of the above Humpbacks are all of the old and new scars that have been created by these pesky little creatures who live a rather interesting lifestyle wouldn’t you agree.
