Photographer Carved Banks was flying his drone above Sydney's Maroubra Seaside on Tuesday when he noticed one thing that stopped him in his tracks – a humpback whale with a really uncommon tail.
As the massive black and white mammal broke by the waves, nothing appeared amiss.
Then the drone operator caught sight of its tail, which curls in on itself, forming a heart-like form.
Carved Banks instructed 9news.com.au he was fortunate to even spot the animal because it was travelling in a big pod.
"I used to be up at first mild on Tuesday morning taking photographs of dawn and observed a big pod of whales travelling previous south Maroubra headland," he stated.
"Thankfully I've a zoom operate on my drone so was in a position to discover the this explicit whale's uncommon tail traits.
"I believed the whale might have been caught up in some fishing web which was proscribing the motion of its tail so I reported into ORRCA."
Organisation for the Rescue and Analysis of Cetaceans (ORRCA) instructed Carved Banks he might have captured a uncommon sighting of a novel whale final seen of the Gold Coast in 2017.
Wildlife scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta instructed 9news.com.au she believes the whale is a humpback she noticed off Sydney in June 2016.
"I first noticed this whale off Sydney six years in the past throughout humpback whale analysis," she stated.
"I'm not certain what has precipitated the tail to be curved like this.
"Most definitely has been born like this and doesn't seem like impacting its means emigrate.
"We do typically see variability and abnormalities in humpback whales migrating.
"It is a very massive inhabitants of over 40,000 and there's more likely to be some people which grow to be well-known on account of their variations."
The world's rarest animals
The sighting comes as humpback whales start to go north to hotter waters.
There they'll mate and provides beginning, earlier than returning again to colder waters in Antarctica.
The migration begins in Could and usually ends round November.