There’s something fishy about that whale...

AT first glance, in the crystal waters off Hawaii, this dark shape looks like a massive predator lurking under the waves.

But look closer and it becomes clear that the ‘whale’ shape is, in fact, an illu- sion. Amazingly, it is entirely comprised of small fish, ‘schooling’ together and inadvertently creating the shape of a much larger creature such as a whale. For scale, the motorboat on the left of the photograph is 12ft long – giving an idea of the size of the massive shoal of fish.

The image was captured in Kailua Bay on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. A group of fish who swim together for social reasons are described as a ‘shoal’ but when they swim in the same direction – as in this stunning photograph – the behaviour is known as ‘schooling’.