Futurismo Biologists TeamIn every whale watching tour, our biologists take pictures of the animals, not only for social media but also for research purposes.
Photo ID is a very used methodology to identify specific individuals, their social interactions, and study their movements and distribution.
At this time of the year, here in the Azores, most of the humpback whales come from warmer waters, like Cape Verde. They continue their migrations towards the north, like Norway, where the waters are more productive and full of food for them.
By exchanging photos and comparing the flukes of the whales with other researchers around the Atlantic, there have been already found matches between Cape Verde, Norway, Iceland and Russia.
Last Saturday, we photographed a humpback whale that was sighted for the first time here on February 24th, 2022. Also, today we had another encounter with the same whale. Was this humpback whale here for these two months? The answer might be hard to know, especially because these animals are not always on sight. But, maybe this individual found good enough conditions to stay around.
Also another curiosity about this species. The humpback whales are usually identified by the tail, but in all encounters with this individual, we never get to see the tail.. on the other hand, we always see the dorsal and it is very peculiar with a hole!
Let’s see when and where this whale is going to show up again!!
Futurismo Biologists Team
Sandrina Rodrigues
