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Sea Life Surveys has photographed the sequence of events leading up to and throughout these feeding lunges. These have been catalogued into different types of lunges and some examples are shown here. Head slapping On several occasions it has been noted that just before the whales lunge at the fish, they first slap the water with their heads. Sea Life Surveys managed to capture this "split second behaviour" in the following 3 sequences. It is thought that this "head slapping" serves to frighten the fish into a tighter bait ball before the whale lunges with its mouth open. |
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Some minke whales lunge through the surface waters on their sides or tilting to one side as seen in the photographs below. |
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The photographs below show that the whales are twisting their bodies so that their dorsal fins (yellow arrow) and tail flukes (white arrow) are showing above the surface at the same time. |
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The minke whales below are lunging in an upright and forward motion. |
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The whales below start off their lunges on their sides and twist so that they finish in an upright and forward motion. |
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| project
minke | watching the whales | minke biology |
minkes worldwide |
feeding minkes | |
