Researchers using suction‑cup cameras on migrating humpbacks captured rare footage of remoras peeling off just before whale breaches and reattaching seconds later. The remoras use a flattened, adhesive plate on their heads to cling to whales and other large animals, riding them for feeding and breeding. Although they feed on dead skin and sea lice and are generally harmless, footage suggests some whales repeatedly breach to try to shake them off. How far remoras travel with whales during the roughly 10,000‑km migration remains unknown.
Rare Footage: Remoras 'Whale‑Surfing' in a Daring High‑Speed Hitchhike
Researchers using suction‑cup cameras on migrating humpbacks captured rare footage of remoras peeling off just before whale breaches and reattaching seconds later. The remoras use a flattened, adhesive plate on their heads to cling to whales and other large animals, riding them for feeding and breeding. Although they feed on dead skin and sea lice and are generally harmless, footage suggests some whales repeatedly breach to try to shake them off. How far remoras travel with whales during the roughly 10,000‑km migration remains unknown.
12:12, 08.11.2025Science
Scientists filming migrating humpback whales off Australia have captured rare, striking footage of remoras — commonly called sucker fish — peeling away from their hosts seconds before a breach and snapping back on with near‑perfect timing. The scenes, recorded by suction‑cup cameras attached to the whales, look like a high‑speed game of chicken played beneath the waves.
On whale cams, clingy fish steal the show
Marine scientist Olaf Meynecke of the Whales and Climate Research Program at Griffith University placed suction‑cup cameras on humpbacks during their annual migration between Antarctica and the waters off Queensland. While he expected to study whale behavior, his feeds frequently showed dozens of photobombing remoras clustered around the camera mounts — sometimes as many as 50 at once.
“Whenever the whale was breaching and doing, in particular, fast movements, it appears that the sucker fish were responding very quickly to the movements,” Meynecke said. “They knew exactly when to let go of the body of the whale before it was breaching the surface of the water and then returned to the same spot only seconds later.”
A hitchhiker with remarkable timing
Remora australis spend much of their short lives attached to whales or other large marine animals, effectively using them as moving platforms for feeding and breeding. The fish have a flattened, adhesive plate on the top of their head that forms a suction‑like seal, allowing them to cling to a host even at speed.
Remoras feed on flakes of dead skin and sea lice and are generally considered commensal or mildly mutualistic — they benefit while the host is neither significantly harmed nor helped. However, Meynecke's footage suggests some humpbacks find the hitchhikers irritating; individual whales were filmed breaching repeatedly, apparently attempting to dislodge large numbers of remoras.
The mystery of the long migration
Australia’s so‑called humpback highway is traversed by roughly 40,000 whales moving between Antarctic feeding grounds and the warmer seas off Queensland. How much of the roughly 10,000‑km (6,000‑mile) migration remoras actually ride with their hosts remains unclear, especially since many remoras live only about two years. Meynecke suspects many remoras may disembark in temperate waters and seek other hosts, but their full life cycle and travel patterns are still a puzzle.
When whale hosts are absent, remoras will latch onto other large animals — manta rays, dolphins — and occasionally cling to humans, much to the annoyance of scuba divers.
Why this matters
These accidental close‑ups give researchers a rare, close‑range look at remora behavior and their dynamic interactions with migratory whales. The footage illustrates not only the remarkable biomechanics of remoras’ suction disk but also the complex relationships between host and hitchhiker in the open ocean.