A short clip of a humpback whale, seemingly sneezing a rainbow, has gone viral after wildlife photographer Domenic Biagini shared the clip on Reddit.
Biagini recorded the footage while he was on a whale-spotting excursion near San Diego last year. He shared it on Instagram December 13, where the video garnered more than 2,600 views, while on Reddit it has got more than 27,000 "upvotes' at the time of writing the article.
In the video, the vapor in the whale's breath refracts and disperses sunlight exactly like raindrops. If the video was caught from a different angle, the rainbow would probably not have been visible.
Rainbows or not, gigantic whales exhaling through their blowholes are quite spectacular. Whales lack gills and have to rise to the surface of the water to inhale and exhale air through their blowholes. While exhaling, the aquatic mammals release a waterspout, which is what was captured in the video. These waterspouts are not all water, rather they are a mixture of warm air, some water vapor and plenty of whale snot, according to Live Science.
Humpback whales are awesome creatures in every sense. They can grow to a size between 48 and 62.5 ft and can weigh around 40 tons (36287.4 kilograms), according to National Geographic.
These giants also communicate in a unique way. They let out sequences of moans, howls, cries, and other complex noises to communicate with other whales and also to attract potential mates, reported whalefacts.org.
