They say that at the end of every rainbow is a humpback whale.
Wait, do they say that? Regardless — thanks to a California wildlife photographer with impeccable timing, you can now say with certainty that at the end of at least one rainbow, there is at least one humpback whale. Watch the glorious, light-spouting cetacean seemingly sneeze a rainbow out of its blowhole in the Instagram video above.
Wildlife photographer Domenic Biagini caught this footage while on a whale-spotting excursion near San Diego last December. (The Instagram feed of Biagini, a photographer for Captain Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari, is loaded with breathtaking videos of whales and dolphins.) Biagini posted the clip to Reddit yesterday (April 10), and the footage has since amassed more than 26,000 “upvotes.” [Whale Album: Giants of the Deep]
That’s a lot of love for luminous whale boogers. Whales are oxygen-breathing mammals that happen to live in the sea; the blowholes at the tops of their heads are, basically, giant nostrils. Whales use these nostrils just like you do when you swim: to suck in air at the water’s surface and to exhale old air when it’s time for a fresh breath. The waterspout you see in the video above comes from this exhalation — but the spout is not all water. Whales typically exhale a mixture of air (warmed by the whale’s body), some water vapor and plenty of whale snot.