Watch Suckerfish Hitch a Wild Ride on Humpback Whales in Rare Video Footage

Suckerfish—also known as remoras—are harmless, but the whales didn’t seem to be fans of their hitchhiking

Margherita Bassi - Daily Correspondent

November 14, 2025 4:15 p.m.

Remoras hitch a ride on a humpback whale. Screenshot of a video captured by Olaf Meynecke, via Griffith University

Marine scientist Olaf Meynecke knows all about suction—he uses suction camera tags to study the migratory movements of humpback whales. But his look at whale behavior ended up revealing some unexpected insight into an entirely different kind of suction: that of remoras, or suckerfish.

The clever photobombers ended up crowding his whale videos—and offering new glimpses into the often-dangerous business of hitching a ride on some of the largest creatures on Earth.

Did you know? How remoras got their name

Remoras got their name from the Latin word for “delay,” thanks to an ancient superstition that a remora hitchhiker would slow down, or even sink, a sailing ship.

Remoras became known as “suckerfish” because of the flat, oval-shaped adhesive organ with which they attach themselves to larger marine animals, such as whales, sharks, manta rays, turtles and dolphins. The organ creates a vacuum effect that lets the animals hitch rides on other sea creatures—and sometimes make unexpected guest appearances in research like Meynecke’s.

Rare footage shows fish gripping on to humpback whale

“They photobombed us,” says Meynecke, of Griffith University in Australia, to the Washington Post’s Victoria Craw. He captured the videos along Australia’s eastern coast, where he’s been seeing increasing numbers of hitchhiking remora. “In previous years, we have seen one passing by, but now we’ve had 20 or so just in front of the camera, and it really triggered us to look into this further,” he adds.

A video shared in a statement from Griffith University shows a handful of long remoras clinging to a whale as it approaches the surface of the water. Right before the whale surfaces, the remoras fling themselves off the large animal. Viewers see a brilliant blue sky for a few moments, and the remoras return shortly after the whale dives back under.

“Whenever the whale was breaching and doing … fast movements, it appears that the sucker fish were responding very quickly,” Meynecke tells the Associated Press’ Charlotte Graham-McLay. “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.”

The remoras were “fast and nimble,” Meynecke says in the statement, noting that they kept adhering to the whale’s body again and again.

Remoras are not parasitic, and they’re harmless to their hosts. The fish eat leftovers from their ride’s meals and feast on external parasites like sea lice that might live on the larger animal. The new videos revealed other secrets about these marine hitchhikers, however, suggesting they sometimes ingest whale skin itself. When whale parasites weren’t available to snack on, the footage suggests, the remoras instead nibbled on shedding skin.

Significantly more remoras attached to shedding whales, Meynecke explains in the statement. “In some cases, we saw as many as 50 remoras on a single whale,” he says. “Even though they are likely beneficial for the whales, as they eat other host organisms such as sea lice, the whales seem to dislike their presence. We have observed whales eyeing them, undertaking multiple breaches then checking again.”

While the videos certainly open a window into the relationship between the two species, remoras remain enigmatic creatures. Researchers don’t know how long they stick with a specific host. And though remora reproductive cycles could be closely linked to the migratory movements of the whales they trail, the particulars are still unknown.

Nevertheless, Vanessa Pirotta, a whale scientist and marine consultant who did not participate in the research, tells the Guardian’s Petra Stock that whales were providing “the ultimate free Uber around the sea.”

You Might Also Like

• November 14, 2025

• November 14, 2025

• November 14, 2025

• November 14, 2025

• November 13, 2025

• More about:

• Animals

• Australia

• Cool Finds

• Ecology

• Fish

• Mammals

• Migration

• New Research

• Oceans

• Weird Animals

• Whales