Typically, I don’t think of whales as the comedians of the animal kingdom. Big? Sure. Majestic? Undoubtedly. But funny? That always seemed more like a canine area of expertise.
However, it turns out that whales have actually just been spending their time perfecting one of the loftiest forms of humor. Leave the Three Stooges antics to the lesser mammals; whales are all about irony.
This groundbreaking scientific discovery came about during filming of a BBC nature show called Big Blue Live off the coast of California. The show tracks the incredible annual gathering of sea creatures that take place in Monterey Bay, which is probably how this tiny otter ended up in the area.
Host Mark Carwardine, a zoologist, is standing on the deck of a ship, explaining the difficulties involved in spotting blue whales for the camera. Blue whales, he says, can be elusive, even though they are the world’s biggest animals at an average of 80 to 100ft long.
They tend to be shy, and to spend a great deal of their time deep under water, where they’re all but invisible to passerby on boats. In addition, they tend to avoid surfacing much on warm, muggy days. As Carwardine explains, “It’s quite frustrating… You know they’re here, just jolly well can’t find them.”
No sooner are the words out of his mouth than a spray of water suddenly appears behind him. We’ll let you watch the rest of the video to see what happens next.
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