New footage shows, for the first time, how humpbacks scrub off dead skin and parasites to stay streamlined and keep their skin healthy.
Humpback whales have — for the first time ever — been filmed rolling to and fro on sandy seabeds to scrub off dead skin and unwanted hitchhikers.
"We believe that the whales exfoliate using the sand to assist with molting and removal of ectoparasites, such as barnacles, and specifically select areas suitable for this behavior," Olaf Meynecke , a marine ecologist at Griffith University in Australia who led the research, said in a statement . The whales picked a shallow, sandy location near their migration route to exfoliate, moving head first through the substrate while they rolled. The density of parasites is generally higher around the face than elsewhere, so getting rid of them requires a rigorous rub, according to the study.
While they cannot exclude the possibility that the whales were trying to scratch off the tags, the researchers note that other individuals that were not tagged were also seen rolling across the seabed in the new footage. The tagged humpbacks also did not seem to be targeting the skin carrying the sensors.
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