Pink! ... The Pièce de Résistance
In this one you can see a part of that special stretchy tissue called ventral groove blubber attached to their lower jaw or mandible of the Humpback Whale that I've been telling you about. When they lower their jaws to extreme angles and swim very quickly while feeding on small fish and krill, a drag force on this blubber causes it to expand to encompass a volume that can be almost as big as the whale itself.
But that's not what makes this photo so special to me. Perhaps you thought I altered the photo in some way ... selective colouring as you've no doubt seen in some photos. Well, I don't even know how to do that ... and, furthermore, I wouldn't do it anyway even if I did know how. No. What you're seeing here is what I saw ... what the camera saw. No embellishments whatsoever!
I've seen quite a few Humpbacks over the years ... but nothing like this! At first I thought it might have been some organic growth in the grooves of the lower jaw ... akin to barnacles. But on closer inspection it seems too regular for that. Then I thought it might be as a result of it being stretched so much ... blood showing through? Don't think so, though. So, maybe some pigmentation aberration?
Whatever it is, it makes for a very interesting photo. You have to check out the larger version. Also, I have a number of shots of this whale. Not just this one. In one of them, this ventral groove blubber is stretched even bigger!
By the way, there are four whales visible in the photograph.
Enjoy!
Pink! ... The Pièce de Résistance
In this one you can see a part of that special stretchy tissue called ventral groove blubber attached to their lower jaw or mandible of the Humpback Whale that I've been telling you about. When they lower their jaws to extreme angles and swim very quickly while feeding on small fish and krill, a drag force on this blubber causes it to expand to encompass a volume that can be almost as big as the whale itself.
But that's not what makes this photo so special to me. Perhaps you thought I altered the photo in some way ... selective colouring as you've no doubt seen in some photos. Well, I don't even know how to do that ... and, furthermore, I wouldn't do it anyway even if I did know how. No. What you're seeing here is what I saw ... what the camera saw. No embellishments whatsoever!
I've seen quite a few Humpbacks over the years ... but nothing like this! At first I thought it might have been some organic growth in the grooves of the lower jaw ... akin to barnacles. But on closer inspection it seems too regular for that. Then I thought it might be as a result of it being stretched so much ... blood showing through? Don't think so, though. So, maybe some pigmentation aberration?
Whatever it is, it makes for a very interesting photo. You have to check out the larger version. Also, I have a number of shots of this whale. Not just this one. In one of them, this ventral groove blubber is stretched even bigger!
By the way, there are four whales visible in the photograph.
Enjoy!