There is a lot that is impressive about the humpback whale, the 40 ton creatures who sing their way through our oceans, on their annual migration from the Earth’s poles to its equator.

And if you’ve ever been whale watching, you’ll know that there’s something quite spectacular about seeing this gigantic mammal propel itself clean out of the water, before landing back in the sea with a huge splash.

But above all others, there is one thing that makes the humpback, out of all the incredible whale species, truly special.

According to new research from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, humpback whales are the only species capable of what is known as bubble-net feeding.

In this truly specialised behavior, humpback whales use their flippers to release bubbles in a ring, with these bubbles effectively encouraging their prey – usually small fish and crustaceans – into this ring, to make for easy consumption.

Using specialised, whale-friendly tags, which attach to the creature using suction cups, as well as drone footage, researcher Cameron Nemeth gathered data to understand how exactly bubble-net feeding worked.

And his discovery, detailed in a paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology, was striking.

Only humpback whales are capable of bubble-net feeding for one key reason: their pectoral flippers.

What Nemeth noted in the research was that the specific body shape and large pectoral flippers (the latter of which generate around half of the required energy for the movement) mean that humpbacks’ can perform the manoeuvre efficiently, while other whale species would an inefficient quantity of energy to do the same, as Nemeth notes in a statement:

“The fact that humpback whales’ pectoral flippers enhance their maneuverability wasn’t the most surprising part of our study, as there have been previous studies on the morphology of these flippers. However, it was shocking to discover that amongst thousands of turns from a variety of behavioral states, no other species of whale examined were achieving the turning performance required to create a bubble-net.”

For humpbacks, their specialized features mean that they can create the bubble-net without expending too much valuable energy, with the concentrated food source within the bubbles helping them to recoup what energy they did use, efficiently and effectively.

This just goes to show what a fascinating creature the humpback whale is.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read a story that reveals Earth’s priciest precious metal isn’t gold or platinum and costs over $10,000 an ounce!