Video of whales at ‘sand spa’ shows skin care is seriously social

Marine scientists Jan-Olaf Meynecke attaches video-enabled tracking tags to humpback whales near Brisbane, Australia. While collecting data for a larger project on the whales’ migration patterns and climate change, Meynecke and his colleagues discovered a new behavior they call “sand rolling.”

Jan-Olaf Meynecke

Studying what whales do underwater has always been hard, but thanks to new video and geolocation technology, scientists are now able to snag little glimpses of life beneath the sea and bring them to the surface.

And what they’ve seen can be surprising and delightful — like humpback whales exfoliating themselves on the shallow ocean floor.

“There was definitely no intention to capture whales rolling in sand,” says Jan-Olaf Meynecke, who described the behavior in a recent paper in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. “The best thing about science is that you never know what you’re actually looking for.”

The new discovery reveals how innovative deployment of more precise instruments can help expand our understanding of elusive marine species. Behaviors once hidden from sight, like the humpbacks’ “sand rolling,” will help paint a more complex picture of their health needs and social life — and could help inform policy debates about offshore habitat conservation.

Meynecke did not set out to study cetacean skin care regimes. The marine scientist has been tracking the migrations of humpback whales since 2010, from his scientific home base at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

It’s difficult and expensive work, often requiring long hours in boats under rough conditions.

In 2019, Meynecke and his colleagues started attaching tracking tags called CATS cams to humpbacks…