Balanced precariously on a dinghy in the churning ocean off South Africa, biologist Paolo Segre had a challenging task: Attach a hamburger-size video camera to a 60-ton humpback whale.

Not only that, Segre had to attach the camera to the whale's broad back with a pair of suction cups while using a 20-foot pole and avoiding the animal’s tail, which could sink the boat (and Segre) with a single slap.

Segre, a biomechanics postdoctoral student at Stanford University, was in the southern Atlantic studying humpback whales' secret lives below the surface. (Get an incredible whale's-eye view of Antarctica.)

His video, however, captured something completely unexpected about the world's most well-known whale species.

Back at his California laboratory, Segre was surprised