12 JULY 2025
It is said a picture tells a thousand words – or in the case of a photo of whale fluke. The underside of a whales tail is unique in the same way a human finger print is. The beautiful black and white patterns, scars, indents help the identification of individual whales. Marine biologist and citizen scientists are then able use tail photos to match and track whales throughout their migrations between Antarctica and the warms waters of northern Queensland and the Pacific Islands.
For today’s whale cruises it has very much been a day of tail, lots of diving tails as we capture the beautiful white underside as the whale slips beneath the surface of the water, of the waterfall of water cascading off the tail as they prepare to dive. There are whales aplenty, but we have stuck with a pod of whales where we have picked them up just north of the Fingal Island Lighthouse, we have cruised along at the pace of the whale having a great chance to view these magnificent creatures.
Anyone is able to submit their images of the whale fluke to Happy Whale – who keep a database globally of submitted photos. https://happywhale.com/home
Photo credit: Lee Matthews Photography