Dr. Mark Erdmann captured the first known footage of an Omura whale feeding during a March 2026 sighting in Dampier Strait. He launched a drone after the crew on a conservation cruise spotted a whale spout, turning a brief surface sighting into a rare visual record.
The footage matters because Omura’s whale was first recognized in 2003, and living specimens were not formally recorded until 2015. Researchers and wildlife observers now have the first direct visual evidence of feeding behavior for a species that is both elusive and difficult to document at sea.
Dr. Mark Erdmann and Silolona Sojourns
Erdmann made the recording during a conservation cruise in partnership with Silolona Sojourns. He is the executive director of ReShark and vice president of Conservation International’s Asia-Pacific marine programs, and the drone sequence began only after the crew saw the whale spout.
The animal in the footage fits what scientists already know about the species. Omura’s whale is a lunge feeder, often mistaken for Bryde’s whale, and has a single ridge on the top of its head, while Bryde’s whale has more than one. It is also known as the Dwarf Fin.
Madagascar field study
The new recording adds to a short field record for a whale that is usually seen alone or in pairs and prefers warm, tropical waters. Omura’s whales have been observed in the Indo-Pacific, western Pacific, and east Indian oceans, but the species remains rare enough that its first discovered population off Madagascar is still treated as a major reference point.
That 2013 study, led by Dr. Salvatore Cerchio, followed a confirmed pod off the coast of Madagascar and marked the last major live field study. The largest known pod of Omura’s whales was found just off Madagascar, and the species’ size — about 33 to 38 feet long and roughly 13 to 30 metric tons when fully grown — has not made it easier to find in open water.
Dampier Strait footage
The March 2026 footage now gives researchers a behavior they did not have before: a feeding sequence on camera. For a whale that was recognized only in 2003 and formally recorded in living form in 2015, the value is not just the image itself but the fact that it documents feeding in a species that has spent years hiding in plain sight.
The next step is not another headline event but deeper comparison with earlier field notes, especially the 2013 Madagascar work and future sightings in the same warm-water range. What exactly made this March 2026 feeding sequence the first known footage of an Omura whale feeding now becomes the question researchers can work from, not around.
