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Not even close. Nice humps though…..
A close encounter, sure, but she wasn’t “almost swallowed.” The whale probably wasn’t interested in her as a food item, especially if it’s the kind that strains for plankton.
t0llyb0ng says:”especially if it’s the kind that strains for plankton.”
Humpbacks. Not filter feeders. They breached with their mouths open almost certainly through a school of fish. Thus the gull’s excitement at the sudden surfeit of sardines. The whales may not have seen the kayak/surfer through the school of fish. The whales would have recognized them as being waaay too big for them to eat. If anyone was in danger, I’d guess it was the photographer!
Whales “see” mainly by echo location, which is much more effective underwater than for bats in the air (dolphins can pick out dimes laying on the bottom of a pool). The whale definitely “saw” this guy.
Being swallowed was not the risk this guy suffered. He could have easily been flattened by a fin, though.
Did you watch the video? It was a girl.
Wow, such lifelike graphics and special effects, how do they do that? Must have taken one hell of a lot of CPU time to render all those birds and splashes and stuff!
Great shot!
The whales blow bubbles, a _lot_ of bubbles, in a big circle under a school of fish, which pens in the fish (they won’t go through the wall of bubbles), then the whales swim up through the middle with their mouths open and get a big mouthful. You can see large numbers of fish swarming to the surface just before the whales (there were clearly two whales) come up. I’ve seen this on various nature shows, but never from so close.
Great video if it isn’t a fake. The whale would have been well aware of the people in there, no danger, I think. Not a whale expert though.
So upon observing the surfer, did the whales smell tuna and come up for a peak?
The Humpback whale’s throat is only about the size of a small watermelon. Fine for fish, not so good for swimmers. Not sure how good the gag reflex is on the Humpback 🙂
But that might be a fate worse than death! 🙂
Tell that to the snake that ate the deer.
http://fox2now.com/news/ktvi-python-eats-deer-in-everglades-20111103,0,7620641.story
They have tiny hole at the back of the mouth so it could not swallow an adult. It wasn’t overly near her or the others but was in between them and the camera. End of story.
I’m most confused by the surfer. I didn’t see anything even resembling a wave in the video.
They knew the whales were out there, and went out to get a closer look and pictures.