A video of a humpback whale gulping up and spitting out a kayaker has gone viral over the last week.  Adrián Simancas was kayaking with his father, Dell Simancas, in the Strait of Magellan, off Chile’s southernmost Patagonia region, when a humpback whale suddenly surfaced, trapping the young man and his yellow kayak in its mouth for a few seconds before letting him go. 

Dozens of media accounts reported that Adrián had been “swallowed” by the whale.  Fortunately, for all concerned, if the word “swallow” is defined as “cause or allow something to pass down the throat,” the description is impossible. Humpbacks are baleen whales that feed primarily on krill and small fish. The whale’s esophagus is only about 4″ to 5″ in diameter, far too small to swallow a person. 

So how did a kayaker end up in a whale’s mouth?

Humpback whales eat up to 3,000 pounds of krill and small fish per day by “lunge-feeding“. Their mouth and throat expand into a sort of balloon shape as it scoops up schools of its prey and considerable quantities of water. They then filter the krill and fish through flexible comb-like baleen plates and squeeze out the excess water. 

As surprised as Adrián Simancas was to find himself in the whale’s mouth, the whale must have been equally shocked to discover that it had scooped up both the kayaker and his kayak.

While humpbacks gulping and spitting out people is rare, it is by no means unheard of.

In 2021, a diver from Cape Cod, Massachusetts was gulped up and then spat out by a humpback whale feeding off the coast of Provincetown.

A year before, two kayakers off California inadvertently got between a lunge-feeding humpback whale and its lunch. Videos of the encounter show the whale surfacing between the yellow kayak, almost appearing to swallow the kayakers and their boat. Fortunately, neither the two kayakers nor the whale appears to have been injured.

In 2011, off Santa Cruz, CA,  two humpback whales leapt skyward, lunge-feeding on krill, within feet between the two sets of kayakers.

Humpback whale swallows kayaker, spits him out

Thanks to David Rye, Alaric Bond and Karen Lorentz for contributing to this post.