For many divers it is a dream to have the possibility to dive with whales.  So when we heard that each year in the months June and July a large number of dwarf minke whales swim along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia our interest was raised. We decided that we would go and examine this phenomenon with our own eyes and went off to Australia.

The Dwarf Minke Whales are, after the pygmee right whale, the second smallest baleen whale which has been discovered until today. The dwarf minke whale was just discovered in the 1980s. Of course it is thought that this whale must have been there earlier but probably the animal was mistaken for a type of dolphin.  As a result of the fact that the animal is just recently discovered not much is known about this animal.

The dwarf minke whale is most closely related to the northern hemisphere minke, the Balaenoptera acutorostrata.  At this moment the dwarf minke whales are considered to be a subspecies of these Balaenoptera acutorostrata. The dwarf minke whale has only been seen in the Southern hemisphere. There are sightings from the waters of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and the east coast of South America. In the months of June and July a large number of dwarf minke whales travel along the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.