Humpback whales are pretty big. Quite enormous in fact. The average weight of a fully grown adult is around 36,000kg, which is about the same weight as 24 adult hippos, but that didn’t stop the massive mammal in the video below from putting on an incredible air display when it leapt completely out of the water in South Africa recently.
The footage was shot in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mbotyi by Craig Capehart, a scuba diver who was sitting in a “rubber duck” inflatable boat when the graceful giant decided to make an appearance. He estimates that the whale weighed around 40 tons, but size clearly meant nothing to this graceful giant. “It seems that never before has a recording been made of an adult humpback whale leaping entirely out of the water! A very rare event, indeed,” wrote Craig in the caption accompanying the video. “Dolphins and even Great White Sharks have been seen flying out of the water, but this is a first for an adult humpback whale!”