Drone footage over the ocean captured an adult southern right whale whose face appeared almost completely black from above.
What happened?
David Currie (@DCurrie_Drones), a wildlife filmmaker, shared recent drone footage of a southern right whale with unusually dark facial markings. The footage was taken off the coast of Western Australia.
Currie wrote, "After filming Southern Rights for a couple of years now this is the first adult I have seen with a fully black face."
The filmmaker added that the whale's head pattern differed from what they usually see, writing, "Normally individuals have unique patterns of white skin patches called callosities on their head but this one really stood out to me as it seems to be purely black with the normal white patches around her eyes."
Currie then asked, has anyone else seen this before in the Southern Rights? I'd be interested to know more."
The unusual appearance of the adult whale prompted questions from viewers in the comments. One commenter wrote, "Cool black head, [but] looks more like a northern hemisphere right whale with few callosities."
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Another commenter asked, "how close to shore is this? Incredible."
Why is this important?
Drone footage offers a perspective that can reveal markings, movement, and scale in ways that are difficult to capture from shore. And this use of drones can also help photographers capture stunning film without disturbing the animals (assuming local distance rules are followed).
In this case, the drone video showed off this stunning mother-and-calf duo slowly making their way through the water. And southern right whales are among the ocean's most iconic large mammals, with their callosities, rough patches of skin on the head, being one of the first features observers notice.
Southern right whales were once driven close to extinction by commercial whaling. Thankfully, anti-whaling protections for them have pushed their populations back into safer territory.
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