In April 2025, researchers shared a cracking drone video of a bowhead whale in Disko Bay, Greenland smashing through a layer of ice to take a breath.
"This behaviour happens frequently during the colder winter and spring months in Disko Bay, when few open water patches exist in the ice,” said marine biologist Fredrik Christiansen from Aarhus University in Denmark, who shared the footage on Instagram.
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As these large mammals – which can grow to 20 metres – swim in Arctic seas, they can come across a problem: ice. When they need to breathe, bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) come to the surface and "can break through ice as thick as 60cm,” he added.
Christiansen was using drones to document the whales when he filmed this breathtaking footage.
His research project is exploring the relationship between climate change and how much these animals are eating – and he does this by filming these massive animals to measure their size and how much blubber they have.
Image and video credit: Fredrik Christiansen, Aarhus University, Denmark
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